The growth in technological capabilities has been advantageous for playwright Anchuli Felicia King and her hands-on input to her productions.
“Unfortunately, because of the lockdown in Melbourne, I was supposed to go to Brisbane for rehearsals and I wasn’t able to,” Anchuli says. “So, I’ve been Zooming in. It’s good to be there remotely, but it’s certainly not the same thing.”
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of staying connected through technology, alongside its perils when in the wrong hands – often by corporations. But it’s the misuses of technology that has proven inspirational to Anchuli, a theme she coats in dark comedy in her acclaimed playwriting debut ‘White Pearl’, which will tour the east coast of Australia.
Set in the Singaporean offices of an Asian cosmetics company, ‘White Pearl’ shows what happens when a commercial for their skin-whitening cream is leaked and goes viral for its racial insensitivity. As a Thai-Australian who grew up in Thailand and the Philippines, Anchuli was inspired by real-life incidences of advertising highlighting racism within Asian countries.
“Skin-whitening products are fairly ubiquitous in the cultural zeitgeist in much the same way as tanning products are ubiquitous in the west. I thought was fascinating because I’d seen these ads growing up, but I had never thought about it. Now with the internet and rapid globalisation, everything was suddenly being held accountable to a global conversation about race, so I found that really timely and urgent and I decided to write a play about it.”
While skin-whitening cream was the germ of ‘White Pearl’, Anchuli’s vigorous research led down a rabbit hole encompassing start-up corporate culture and workplace toxicity, with both becoming dominant themes of the play.
Image © Phil Erbacher
“I was really interested in the utopian sheen that start-ups try to impose on their work culture versus the reality of working in a start-up,” she says. “I think I get drawn to looking at workplaces as a microcosm of broader power structures, and political and economic structures.”
Where ‘White Pearl’ differs from most office-set dark comedies is in its exploration of the rivalries among Asian cultures. The cast is made up of six Asian women, each from different countries and backgrounds, and also with their own confronting views and prejudices.
“The play features these six specific idiosyncratic Asian female characters, and I wanted to explore the power dynamics that go on in an office like that. The goal of that was to resist narratives of Asia as a monoculture by putting six different, idiosyncratic Asian women on stage and exploring what it means to be, like, Korean with a master's degree in biochemistry, or this is what it means to be from Mumbai with a lifelong British education, or this is what it means to be Thai-American.”
While the themes of ‘White Pearl’ are intellectually dense, the dark comedy Anchuli spins from the situation has shocked and delighted audiences, winning the play acclaim and making it a must-see.
“I like getting people to laugh so that they can confront uncomfortable truths,” she says. “’White Pearl’ is just a really good old-fashioned dark office comedy with spiralling disasters and characters behaving awfully and things getting worse and worse, and I think anyone can engage with this play and get something out of it, certainly at least a good laugh.”
‘White Pearl’ Tour Dates
17 June-10 July – Queensland Theatre15 July-4 September – Sydney Theatre Company
9-11 September – Riverside Theatre Parramatta
15-18 September – Canberra Theatre Centre
