A Ghost in My Suitcase by Gabrielle Wang

Celeste’s story is a multi-faceted and potentially dark one, but here it’s treated with warmth, imagination and gentle humour. It grapples with questions of grief, family, legacy, identity and connection, presenting them with a light but steady touch. 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.Īdapted 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. This, she learns, is considered to be a gift. 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. Half-Chinese, half-French (“and all Australian,” she adds), Celeste sits at the intersection of the realms of the living and the dead. This is a sophisticated and poetic rendition adapted by Vanessa Bates, ostensibly for children, but calibrated also for an adult sensibility.Celeste, our 12-year-old hero in pigtails and a backpack, straddles worlds in A Ghost in my Suitcase. WINNER: 2019 AWGIE Award for Theatre for Young Audiences.Ī Ghost In My Suitcase is superb family theatre – a stylish, big-hearted and vibrant adaptation of a much-loved children’s book. When Celeste learns she may have inherited her grandmother’s talent, she must decide whether to acknowledge her gifts and use them to save her family and friendsâ€” and if she has the strength needed for the job.įilled with fantastical characters from this world and the next, A Ghost in my Suitcase is a beautifully told tale of mystery, grief, difference and acceptance. Por Por is a ghost-hunter and her services are much in demand.

There she meets her grandmother, Por Por, a quirky and wise woman with an unusual skill.

Twelve-year-old Celesteâ€”‘half French, half Chinese and all Australian’â€”travels to China to scatter her mother’s ashes. Included in the Sydney Festival 2019 CollectionĪdapted by Vanessa Bates from Gabrielle Wang’s award-winning novel, A Ghost in my Suitcase is an action-packed adventure story that crosses cultural and spiritual worlds.

A Ghost in My Suitcase by Gabrielle Wang