Celeste, our 12-year-old hero in pigtails and a backpack, straddles worlds in A Ghost in my Suitcase. Half-Chinese, half-French (“and all Australian,” she adds), Celeste sits at the intersection of the realms of the living and the dead.
While in China to visit her grandmother Por Por (Amanda Ma, with a twinkle in her eye), and scatter her mother’s ashes in her homeland, Celeste (an earnest Alice Keohavong) learns that she comes from a long line of ghost hunters. This, she learns, is considered to be a gift. It’s not necessarily a gift Celeste might want – not like Por Por’s charge, Ting Ting (a lightfooted Yilin Kong) who has been training for the hunt her whole life – but it is Celeste’s birthright, and soon she must harness this matrilineal power to keep her family safe.
Adapted from Gabrielle Wang’s children’s novel by playwright Vanessa Bates, this production by Western Australia company Barking Gecko, who make theatre for children, is co-directed by Ching Ching Ho and Matt Edgerton. It grapples with questions of grief, family, legacy, identity and connection, presenting them with a light but steady touch. Celeste’s story is a multi-faceted and potentially dark one, but here it’s treated with warmth, imagination and gentle humour.
With puppetry, projections, fight choreography and a set (by Zoë Atkinson) in continuous motion like waves, this production feels alive and lively. Matthew Marshall’s lights add depth and drama – when a ghost is vanquished, we’re bathed in light so bright and hopeful we can’t see – and Rachael Dease’s sound design helps guide us through some potentially scary moments like a helping hand.
It’s unfortunate that this production, built on a touring set that must play many venues and may not fit into any of them with optimal dimension, feels far away and out of reach on the Drama Theatre’s letterbox stage. When many of us can’t see the actor’s faces, or feel immersed in their world, it’s harder to engage in the emotional journey underneath the ghost-hunting.
Still, as we all left the theatre and returned to Sydney on a January evening, I spotted children singing Celeste’s signature tune, copying Ting Ting’s moves, and discussing whether or not they were afraid of a particular bed-haunting ghost. The children in the audience are who matter most, and they seemed to find the heart of the story even if they had to squint a bit and lean forward for it. That’s the magic of theatre.