A clash of cultures and class
Daniel Nelson
Rice throws together an ambitious, high-flying Indian- Australian business executive trying to seal the deal of the century with the Indian government and a poorly paid struggling migrant Chinese office cleaner.
Good ingredients for a spicy confrontation, and plenty of food for thought about business morality, migration, ethnicity, class and, for added flavour, men and parenting.
Their respective personal and family dramas unroll and intertwine in a well-paced succession of short scenes, and the two actors conjure up a variety of characters on a simple but effective set. And the way they talk to the audience is engaging. But, for my taste, the story never quite lifts off the page. The rice is rather stodgy.
That’s partly because I have no sympathy for the ambitious Nisha, who wants to become the first female Indian CEO of a major Australian company but who seems surprisingly unaware of the lethality of corporate power games. (She is more business-like when it comes to sex, on which her straightforward verdict is “Done”).
Lack of empathy for Nisha’s chosen career, as drawn by Australian-Hmong playwright Michele Lee, is particularly undermining because it’s her attempted deal with India that drives the plot.
Yvette, her older rival in the battle over the office wastepaper basket, is easier to like and empathise with. Her daughter’s involvement in a protest against an unethical supermarket chain provides another plot twist.
Events force them into an unlikely relationship.
Australian Stage described the play as “a heady broth of gender, generation and globalisation”. It won the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Best Original Stage Play. There’s talent here, too, in the acting, directing, staging. It just didn’t quite work for me.
* Rice, £15-£32, is at the Orange Tree Theatre, 1 Clarence Street, TW9, until 13 November. It will be livestreamed on 4-5 November and available online on demand from 7.30pm 16 November to midnight 19 November. It is an Orange Tree Theatre and Actors Touring Company co-production. Info: 8940 3633/ https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk