Two Cents: A Succulent Chinese Musical?! (Sydney Fringe)
The world knows him as the man, the meme, the moustachioed ‘GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY PENIS!’ legend. Jack Karlson’s throat-trembling protests to the law in a Fortitude Valley Chinese restaurant are improv perfection, an inimitable baritone performance of high drama by the scruffy everyman. Captured by a reporter in 1991, uploaded to the internet in 2009, the (under what?!) arrest has since played on millions of screens worldwide. Under such duress, after all, who amongst us could be so eloquent? In our arsenal against injustice, who could summon the word ‘succulent’?
Jack Karlson may have unwittingly become part of our nation’s underdog mythology, but like all myths, the real history got lost. In A Succulent Chinese Musical?!, playwrights Rick Butler and Kate Stewart seek to partially rectify this, while paying fond tribute with appropriately over-the-top dramatics and confabulatory licence to the boys’ home runaway turned serial prison escapee and recidivist crook, who re-emerged via The Chats ‘Dine N Dash’ video, and died last year at age 82. In doing so, they follow in the footsteps of others who have paid long-due recognition to our ‘democracy manifest’ viral video hero, including a 2024 documentary (The Man Who Ate A Succulent Chinese Meal) and a 2023 biography by Mark Dapin (Carnage).
Gentlemen, it’s a noble enterprise, executed with silly aplomb for its Sydney debut at Fringe. Karlson’s tale is much a rollicking adventure as tragedy, with the playwrights keeping this truth in a light tension throughout. Played with oratory excellence by Butler, we follow his falling in with his stentorian prison mentor ‘the laughing bandit’ (a show standout in Max Newstead); his diamond heist escapades with his ride-or-die/pork dumpling (Victoria Luxton); and the false confessions extracted by corrupt police. All lead us to the pièce de résistance finale, the recreated meme, which becomes even more juicy with the benefit of backstory.
There’s a lot of optimism in this musical update on the myth, with a rueful detective and a resilient larrikin-battler Karlson. Documentary telling it is not; entertaining it is. I will be savouring the wonton wordplay in particular for the rest of the week.
What is the charge?! Just $42 till the end of Fringe.
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A Succulent Chinese Musical?!
by Rick Butler & Kate Stewart
Presented by At Your Service Theatre Co.
Until 13 September
