Despite of the sheer optimism evoked by her name, Sunny (Jennifer Lim), the heroine in Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness has a life that’s anything but. Born to a family of peasants in the People’s Republic of China, as a newborn she is thrown in a bucket where her mother has dumped all the other girls she’s given birth to. Rescued by her reluctant father (James Saito) who takes pity in her crying, Sunny grows up to be an idealistic young woman trying hard to succeed in a world she just wasn’t meant for.
As a young adult we see her working as a janitor at a factory in Shenzhen, that serves as a supplier for a large retail seller called Price Smart. There she dreams of climbing up the corporate ladder, but finds her chances diminished both by her gender and the environment of dread that surrounds her; when one of her co-workers jumps off the window, it is suggested that they will be replaced by yet another hungry, willing anonymous body, who will then be replaced by someone else. But Sunny must continue working there in order to send money back home and support her younger brother Pete’s (Telly Leung) studies.
Inspired by the teachings of a motivational speaker who calls himself Mr. Destiny (Francis Jue), Sunny finds herself grabbing the bull by the horns, and obtains a promotion using sexual advances, she is sure that soon she will become like her role model Artemis Chang (Sue Jin song), the vice president of the company, who glides across the stage as if completely unaware that there’s anyone else beside her. Another opportunity rises, when Chang decides to host a competition which will have them choose a random employee to become a symbol of the booming Chinese economy, and a reminder that all dreams can come true.
Cowhig’s play is drenched in the kind of cynicism that has the audience wondering if they should laugh or gasp, as we see various issues of Chinese society represented through scenes that feel straight out of a farce. A mother decides to kidnap her son to avoid him from getting in trouble with the law, a young woman slashes her wrists and is literally cleaned from the floor by a janitor, a woman is kidnapped and forced to confront the past she’s been hiding for years, and Sunny is almost forced to marry a dead man, in order to keep the souls of her ancestors happy.
The World of Extreme Happiness is never an easy show to watch, both because of its subject matter, and also because Eric Ting’s hyperactive direction demands that we move at a super speedy pace, perhaps to suggest the rapid changes that China itself is suffering. It’s a valuable sociopolitical artifact that will undoubtedly reveal itself to be prescient in years to come, testament to how a group of artists reacted to a reality that might be happening halfway across the world, but yet, feels so far away that it doesn’t seem “real” to us.
