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written & directed by Jiovanni Sy 施崇梵

Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford

August 22–October 24, 2026

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know” (Laozi, Tao Te Ching)

The Stratford Festival is currently presenting the world premiere of The Tao of the World by Jiovanni Sy 施崇梵, co-author of the hit Salesman in China seen at Stratford in 2024. Sy has based the new play on the Restoration comedy The Way of the World (1700) by William Congreve but has relocated the action from Congreve’s contemporary London to Singapore in the 21st century just after the Covid pandemic. While Sy’s play, like Congreve’s, is a satire of the ultra-rich, Sy’s play comes off not as a display of wit but as a raunchy sex farce with pangs of a political conscience.

The Way of the World is generally considered the pinnacle of Restoration comedy for its ruthless satire of the immoral, money-mad upper classes and for its extraordinarily elegant style. Congreve’s play is also known for having one of the most complex plots of the period. By relocation his adaptation to the present, Sy keeps the complex plot and replaces Congreve’s witty prose with dialogue suitable for a low-grade modern romcom — thus saving the least valuable part of Congreve and throwing away the best.

In Sy’s title for his adaption, “Tao” (pronounced “dow”) means “way or path”. Its use is a means of signalling that Sy’s version is set in East Asia. Unlike the neutral word “way” in English, “Tao” has religious significance. There is a whole religion called “Taoism” which Sy recognizes by including a supposed Taoist monk. Unfortunately, the monk is a made a comic figure. He’s clad like the cliché of an ancient kung fu master, not like a Taoist monk, so that Sy does not avoid trivializing the religion.

Sy has been clever in finding modern equivalents for the characters in Congreve. In the plays of both authors, two women are in love with the same man — Arabella in Sy (Mrs. Fainall in Congreve) and Millicent (Millamant) with Edward Lim (Mirabell). In both, elderly, wealthy woman, Helena Yu (Lady Wishfort) has power over her daughter (Arabella) and niece (Millamant). This powerful woman has chosen the man that her niece must marry, a relative from the country — Dr. Wilson Wong (Sir Wilfull Witwoud). Should Millicent disobey her, Millicent will not receive many millions of shares in in Helena’s company (in Congreve, her dowry). Millicent, therefore, asks Arabella to help her win Helena Yu’s approval to marry Edward Lim, thus forcing Arabella to help her own rival succeed. Many complications ensue.

While Sy retains the rudiments of the plot, he completely changes the relation of the play to the audience by turning Arabella into a narrator. The play is a story Arabella is telling. She sets up scenes and interrupts the action with snarky comments about the characters involved. While Sy makes Arabella the main source of humour, that humour is very far from witty or urbane. When Dr. Wilson Wong says he is from Regina (SK) and people wonder about the pronunciation, Arabella lies on her back, opens her legs and points between them.

One of the most famous scenes in Congreve is the so-called “proviso scene” in Act 4 in which Mirabell and Millamant discuss the terms in which they would accept each other in marriage. It’s a battle of wits in which Congreve shows male and female to be equal players and sends up the patriarchal norms of marriage. Sy includes a similar scene but rather than expanding on the couple’s negotiations to be equal partners, Sy focusses only n their debate about taking lovers. Instead of being the centre of the play, Sy’s version is over before you know it.

While Sy’s version is a farce, Sy also decides to make it take on serious social issues. In Congreve Lady Wishfort’s maid Foible marries Mirabell’s servant Waitwell. Sy reimagines this pair as a same-sex couple, Jackson and Devan, no longer servants, though Devan is importantly the son of Lady Yu’s maid. The couple wants to marry but in 2022 when the action begins, not only is gay marriage illegal in Singapore but so are all sexual relations between men under Section 377A of the Penal Code.

Act 1 ends with Jackson being arrested in a raid on an underground gay bar. We fear the worst, but at the top of Act 2 he’s free. Lim’s fame has secured his release. Thus, Sy evokes the severity of Singapore’s Penal Code only to trivialize its power.

Another attempt by Sy to give the farce political weight is more effective. In Act 2 after Arabella upbraids a manicurist for injuring her, Sy stops the show and has all the actors who have been playing servants come forth. They want the audience to know that though they have few or no lines that they are still part of the play and the elite members of society we have been watching could not function without their help. In a second outburst later on, one servant tells their spokesperson that the audience doesn’t care about their lives. They only want a happy ending for the main characters.

These two interruptions are useful in pointing out that the play (and its source) care only for the machinations of the upper class and implicates us in caring nothing for the serving class members of the story. Now, Sy’s guilt-tripping us would work if these interventions were inserted into Congreve’s play. But they are inserted into his own free adaptation that he can manipulate any way he wants to. Despite this awareness of class inequities, he still focusses on the petty trials of the elite. As for our wanting a “happy ending” for the characters, this assumes that we even care about them, and nothing in Sy’s adaptation makes us interested in which deceitful characters succeed or fail.

Jovanni Sy falls into the old mistake in directing comedy in thinking that having actors speak more loudly makes the comedy funnier. It doesn’t. It simply makes the play sound continually abrasive and therefore tiresome. Some of Sy’s cast are able to modulate their tone. Others are not.

As Arabella, Agnes Tong 唐若馨 is cynical, world-weary guide to the proceedings. Her comic timing is excellent, but, over the course of two-and-a-half hours, her unvaried tone begins to wear out its welcome.

As Edward Lim, Angus Yam 任孝聰 presents just the opposite case. He projects his well-modulated voice with natural authority and is the only cast member to adopt an assured British accent. Yam is able to convince us that Edward, despite his fame and immense wealth, has managed not be corrupted by it.

For Heidi Sy Damayo, excess is the key word. Damayo shouts rather than projects Millicent’s speeches with the result that little she says can be understood. Damayo may be trying to convey Millicent’s enthusiasm, but her wild gestures simply look like overacting.

Manami Hara 原真奈美 plays Lady Helena Yu, whom Sy calls the “dragon lady” of the play. Despite the fantastic costumes Ming Wong 黄慧明 gives her and the musical build-up Mishelle Cuttler creates before Lady Helena’s entrances, Hara just does not have the physical presence or a resonant enough voice to make Lady Helena the fear-inspiring figure she is meant to be.

Michael Man has given many fine performances in the past, but he follows Sy’s lead in pushing his Dr. Wilson Wong over the top. Initially, Man is very funny as a wimpy guy from Saskatchewan who is clearly out of his depth among the glitterati of Singapore. Man makes Wong’s sudden realization that he is gay quite humorous as are his awkward attempts to act on his impulses. Soon enough, however, he, too, is shouting, doing funny walks and pulling funny faces like the majority of the others.

Karthik Kadam and Derek Kwan makes a believable gay couple of Devan and Jackson, thwarted by Singapore’s anti-gay legislation into checking any outward expression of their feelings. Kadam plays Devan as the more hot-headed of the two, while Kwan plays Jackson as quieter and more resigned.

Tim Campbell as Trevor and Sara-Jeanne Hosie as Eleanor are the two White people in the play. Trevor is supposed to be married to Arabella, but Sy gives them so few scenes together that it is hard to remember the fact. One might think that Trevor as a member of the colonizing nation, would feel secure in his supposed superiority, yet Campbell plays him as insecure and uncomfortable. Hosie, however, lends Eleanor a fine comic poise. Eleanor feigns total obedience as Lady Helena’s confidante but is as hypocritical as everyone else and happily schemes with Trevor about how to topple Helena from power.

The best aspect of The Tao of the World is that it gives us a rare portrait on stage of the world of the Singapore elite and of the people who serve them. Lim says to Kwan, a member of an ancient Singaporean family, that his people (the Han Chinese) conquered Kwan’s people and have hired Devan’s people (those from South Asia) to serve them. The elite’s use of British accents shows how the upper class Singaporeans have linked themselves with the British who colonized them. Sy presents us with a diverse ethnic population divided by wealth and class.

One only wishes that Sy had not chosen to portray the Singaporeans in such a cartoonish fashion. Many who reviewed the book Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (2013), the basis for the 2018 movie, Kwan had simply replaced old stereotypes of Asian people with new stereotypes such as, to quote Patricia Park, “Henwees (high-net worth individuals)” and “bitchy shopaholic party girls”. Sy’s plays gives the impression. The Singaporean setting in The Tao of the World is novel and enjoyable, but the play still makes me want to revel in the sophisticated language of Congreve’s The Way of the World, last seen at Soulpepper in 2008 but not performed at Stratford since 1976.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Heidi Sy Damayo as Millicent and Agnes Tong 唐若馨 as Arabella.; Heidi Sy Damayo as Millicent, Manami Hara 原真奈美 as Lady Helena Yu and Agnes Tong 唐若馨 as Arabella and Sara-Jeanne Hosie as Eleanor with members of the company; Heidi Sy Damayo as Millicent and Angus Yam 任孝聰 as Edward Lim; Agnes Tong 唐若馨 as Arabella and Michael Man as Dr. Wilson Wong; Karthik Kadam as Devan and Derek Kwan as Jackson. © 2026 David Hou.

For tickets visit: www.stratfordfestival.ca.