There is something inherently theatrical about a karaoke bar: the ritual of performance, the blurring of truth and bravado, the stage-light intimacy between strangers. In Congratulations, Get Rich! Merlynn Tong seizes on that setting and stretches it into a mythic space—half haunted, half neon-lit—with a story that straddles the real and the fantastical.
The story follows Mandy (Merlynn Tong) on the night of her 38th birthday, as she attempts to revive her struggling karaoke bar with a one-off Chinese New Year extravaganza. But just as the festivities are meant to begin, two unexpected women arrive: her mother—who died by suicide over two decades ago at the very same age—and a stranger she suspects to be her grandmother. What unfolds is a supernatural reunion, where three generations of women clash, commiserate, and wrestle with the legacies they cannot quite outrun.
Directed by La Boite’s Artistic Director Courtney Stewart, this bold, new world premiere production is very stylishly executed. The set and design transform La Boite’s Roundhouse into a shimmering liminal world—where memory and melody slip across the border between the living and the dead.
It is the ghosts, though, who carry much of the evening’s spark. Kimie Tsukakoshi and Seong Hui Xuan deliver standout performances as Mandy’s spectral grandmother and mother, pitching their characters somewhere between camp spectacle and aching truth. Their work brings a sharpness to the comedy and an honesty to the grief beneath.
But despite the trappings of comedy, the show spends much of its time in darker territory. Grief, intergenerational trauma, and the sense of lives cut short press heavily against the karaoke fun. There are laughs, but fewer than you might expect from the marketing, and the promise of “hope” in the tagline feels like it never fully lands. Instead, the evening lingers in a kind of heavy ache. At times I found myself wondering whether my own world-weariness had blunted the comedy—whether in another season of life the show’s balance of pain and hope might have resonated differently.
Some of the songs were difficult to catch in full—the sound mix occasionally uneven—which made it harder to follow the emotional through-line. But even when I couldn’t make out the words, I could feel the intention through the ensemble’s commitment to the work and the empathic direction. The mother-daughter dynamic, with all its mess and tenderness, rang true.
For me, the weight of the darkness overshadowed the lighter notes. Perhaps that was the point: karaoke as catharsis, not celebration. Yet I left feeling more haunted than uplifted. Congratulations, Get Rich! is bold, well-performed, and thematically rich—but it may surprise audiences who expect just a raucous comedy. What it offers instead is a reckoning, sung at full volume, with ghosts that refuse to stay politely in the past.
WHAT: Congratulations, Get Rich!
WHERE: La Boite Roundhouse Theatre, 6 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove, QLD.
TICKETS: https://laboite.com.au/shows/congratulations-get-rich
In her spare time, she likes long walks down the makeup aisle and performing in Brisbane theatre. You can follow her adventures on Instagram and TikTok @thebeautypalate.
