Rice

This is the part where we talk about something new. A renaissance of new contemporary Asian-Australian stories on stages across Brisbane this year.

Merlynn Tong’s Blue Bones at the Brisbane Powerhouse gave a personal and confronting insight into violent relationships, Michelle Law’s sassy Single Asian Female at La Boite Theatre unpacked the struggles of first generation Australians to keep their families together. And now Michele Lee’s dynamic two-hander, Rice, which won the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award and premiered in Brisbane this month before back-to-back seasons in Sydney and Wodonga, takes us to the edge of our identity as Australians. Do we carry our cultural heritage as a source of pride, a cross to bear or leverage to further our own personal ambitions? What happens when we realise the time it takes to get from Level 20’s executive offices to the basement is not 30 seconds but one moment of misguided intuition?

Arts organisations like Playwriting Australia, Griffin Theatre, Playlab, La Boite Theatre Company and Queensland Theatre are leading the movement to support meaningful storytelling in this space. Having an Arts Minister/Premier on side helps enormously and when Annastacia Palaszczuk announced on the opening night of Rice at Queensland Theatre’s Bille Brown Studio that funding was being made available to upgrade the theatre, including improved seating, she addressed the only criticism to be had for this premiere performance.

For actors wanting to leave an indelible mark on Australian theatre, these plays offer extraordinary opportunities and Rice director Lee Lewis, has found two of Australia’s most engaging talents in Hsiao-Ling Tang and Kristy Best.

Tang returns to stage following her centrifugal role in Single Asian Female. While she has the same grounding force in Rice as Yvette, the Chinese cleaner and mother to a young environmental activist who’s just landed on the wrong side of the law, it was refreshing to see her delve into a tribe of characters, male and female, Asian and red-blooded Australian. This woman can polish a table as easily as she cleans a boardroom of original ideas.

Testing her patience and demanding constant attention is Nisha, the overly ambitious young would-be chief executive who is on a mission to sell rice to India and to teach Yvette how to clean her office properly. Kristy Best builds a complex character in Nisha, conveying a sense of corporate paranoia and naivety but also a strength of purpose that is as much a personal trait as a career prerequisite. Best also has fun delving into myriad other characters, and has the most fun taunting Yvette as her  unsympathetic nephew.

For 90 minutes these women have our full attention. Renee Mulder’s minimalist design with a white office, white desk, chair and cabinet, draws attention to the simplicity of an environment that can host such turmoil around global food technology and family ties. 

Lee loves this juxtaposition. It’s while the audience ponders the play’s giant questions of identity and integrity that she interrupts her story to remind us that the ordinary has something to say as well.

“This is the part where we eat.” And there is silence as a corporate executive and a cleaner share rice, chicken and vegetables on a Monday night in the office.

“This is the part where we go home.” There is the ending that brings two very different women together as friends and they share a ride home, and then there is the ordinary ending, where two women who have grown to respect each other go home on their own because in reality, it’s too far to take someone to Ferny Hills when you live in Mango Hill.

Please take someone with you to see Rice. You are going to want to talk about it afterwards. You are going to want to see it again because it is an important part of the story of Australian theatre. This is the part where you matter.

Debra Bela