White Pearl

White Pearl was first developed by Playwriting Australia through its National New Play Development Program and the National Play Festival in 2018 and has been staged professionally in Sydney, Brisbane, London, and Washington DC prior to this OzAsia showing.  The darkly comic production is co-presented by Sydney Theatre Company and the National Theatre of Parramatta.

This satire invites us to board a speeding roller-coaster laden with issues: a leaked, racially inappropriate skincare video campaign ad; social media hype, influence and trolling; fractious inter-Asian racial politics; contemporary corporate faux-democracy; political correctness; cultural slurs; beauty industry secrets and fads; and juxtaposed layers of personal, corporate and inter-cultural relationships.  The pace is thrilling and successfully encourages the audience to attend the rich narrative played out (for this white, middle-aged reviewer) in a somewhat unfamiliar cultural setting.

A crisis looms in the Clearday™ Singapore offices from a leaked, Chinese-made promotional video for their skin bleaching crème. The context of the video praises ‘whiteness’, lampoons blackface and correlates ‘black’ with ‘evil’.  The now ever-downward trajectory of the company’s reputation launches bitter, escalating face offs between the women of the team concerning blame, intelligence and talent, and cultural stereotypes.  The team trade increasingly vitriolic, bigoted cultural and racial slurs which are confronting for an audience, given the entire cast and the characters are from several Pan-Asian cultures.  It is not comfortable but it is an acerbic study of an Asia that Westerners do not often witness.  The juxtaposition of hilarity and shock continues throughout White Pearl and though the lens is trained on Asian mores, I found myself squirming at the echoes of unspoken but ever-present and widespread, vicious Western/white discrimination and harm.

In the form of a subversive comedy, Anchuli Felicia King has written a remarkable and eloquent script that exudes insight and intelligence whilst revealing a multitude of complex layers.  Dialogue flows and is nuanced through individual characters’ language rhythms and accents.  The characters are developed over the course of the play in subtle ways, and graced at times with gentle, almost fond cliché .  The personal and corporate stories intertwine around issues of money, power, status, influence and consumerism, but always reference the endless potential of humanity to create chaos and inflict damage on a number of levels.  There are moments too where social commentary is highlighted through exposition of character, for example when the Japanese office-manager/strategist gives an impromptu explanation about a different way to describe the aspirational ‘results’ of the whitening crème.  The agreed philosophical strategy gleaned from this, and to save face as the company moves through the crisis, is that the video was suggesting it “only works on inner beauty”.

Priscilla Jackman’s direction is seamless, detailed and incisive, delineating the high stakes and status shifts in each scene.  The dimly lit and slick scene changes are excellent with cast manipulating props and furniture accompanied by Michael Toisuta’s (and associate Me-Lee Hay’s) brash compositions and soundscapes.  Simultaneously a stylized, overly large YouTube ticker counts ‘views’ of the contentious video and a collection of various trolling or supportive or questioning social media grabs scrolls speedily across the top of the set.  It was fascinating to catch glimpses of these comments but the fast digital vision didn’t allow for a full reading of them.  The scrolling comments held a whole other story of social media liberties within their variety and while I understand the artistic need for only revealing them in flashes, it was compelling to read what we could.  Incidentally, the digital projection components were designed by the playwright.

Designer Jeremy Allen and Lighting Designer Damien Cooper deliver the realistic stylish corporate start-up office and bathroom interiors with hyper-real elements overlaid as needed.  Bright colours and lighting, shiny surfaces, moveable furniture that doesn’t scream office décor and neon ornamentation vie for attention as the cast energetically move through the space.  The bathroom/toilet cubicles (for shedding tears, exposing secrets and ‘other’ activities) are set to one side and slightly elevated with considered lighting and electric blinds to assist in the division of the spaces.

Seven excellent actors comprise a tight, interactive ensemble imbuing the play with dynamism and a fascinating yet diverse female sovereignty.  Deborah An, Kristy Best, Cheryl Ho, Mayu Iwasaki, Nicole Milinkovic and Lin Yin give remarkable performances aided by impeccable voice/accent coaching from Amy Hume and Leith McPherson.  Each performer’s commitment to idiosyncratic vocals and clear physicality combined with King’s text make for great characterization and volatile culture clashes. I did find that there were intermittent volume issues, but I have often pondered if there are acoustic ‘dead’ spots within the Dunstan Playhouse auditorium impacting audience sound perception.  Delivered ably by Matthew Pearce, a token French male character cements a clichéd millennial timbre with a self-centred and underhanded approach to life and relationships.

Anchuli Felicia King was struck by the preponderance of skin whitening product ads on her socials in 2016 and although these cosmetics were the norm when she was growing up in Thailand and The Philippines, in the age of YouTube and #cancelculture the products inspired divided and extreme reactions.  In this, her first play, some of King’s characters are outraged by the racist video ad while others find it quite funny and entertaining, just as authentic reactions to skin whitening potions vary widely on social media.

It is exciting to have this play performed in Adelaide.  A new voice and a different, highly capable generational approach to theatre is sorely needed.  Long may Anchuli Felicia King contribute to theatrical story-telling and thought provoking work.

Lisa Lanzi

Buy the script here.