White Pearl

Anchuli Felicia King has brilliantly captured some very on point topics in a highly satirical and amusing way. So many relatable storylines – corporate contradictions, casual and structural racism, social media viral frenzies that can make or break a business or a person. Set in a corporate office...

Anchuli Felicia King has brilliantly captured some very on point topics in a highly satirical and amusing way.

So many relatable storylines – corporate contradictions, casual and structural racism, social media viral frenzies that can make or break a business or a person.

Set in a corporate office based in Singapore the gist of the story is about the unfortunate (or so it seems) internet release of a highly racist commercial for their beauty product White Pearl, which is a skin-lightening agent, very favoured in the Asian market.

The ensuing antics in the office is hilarious and somewhat disturbing.

There are definitely some laugh-while-you-cringe moments and be ready for a bit of very coarse language and some sexual activity, but pretty certain that the creator understands that this only adds to the conversation about today’s society’s hot topics.

The set is great, with great lighting and great use of video monitors etc during the show. And the onstage toilet is certainly quirky!

This won’t be a play for everyone, but I think it is worth seeing and is quite thought-provoking.

White Pearl deftly tackles racism, cancel-culture, millennials, #girlbosses and startup journeys but could make a better impact with its arsenal of hot takes. Packed into one act the show explores the above themes with a tight script and a slick set to match.The setting: corporate offices of a Singaporean cosmetics business....

White Pearl deftly tackles racism, cancel-culture, millennials, #girlbosses and startup journeys but could make a better impact with its arsenal of hot takes.

Packed into one act the show explores the above themes with a tight script and a slick set to match.The setting: corporate offices of a Singaporean cosmetics business.

The plot: A pan-Asian, all-female management team deals with the viral fallout of a leaked TV commercial for their skin whitening cream.

The foundation is clearly laid for a melting pot of culture clashes, wavering business ethics and some hot takes on the central theme of inherent racism across Asia.

For the most part, the show does a good job of handling its core message without coming off as preachy – if anything it’s laissez faire in approach.

Thankfully the quickfire banter keeps things humming along, and the authentic lived-in performances by the actors invite you to laugh along rather than get bogged down in any feeling that it may be problematic.

On that note it was a truly ensemble performance.

Highlights were Cheryl Ho (Sunny Lee) and Nicole Milinkovic (Built Suttikul) who seemed to relish and fully inhabit their roles. However, they raised the bar to a point that wasn’t quite reached by the full cast.

Despite being only 90-minutes long, there is some fat that could be cut from this show.

Without spoiling anything there are some asides that serve only as convenient (and obvious) plot devices.

Take those away and you’ve got a tight, acerbic play that doesn’t lose focus on its core goal of highlighting problematic, idiosyncratic beliefs while making you laugh.

If you find the Avenue Q hit, ‘Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist‘ enjoyable, you’ll certainly get a kick out of White Pearl.

Anchuli Felicia King’s White Pearl addresses issues of casual racism and corporate culture in a 90-minute show. I loved the ideas behind the play. A black comedy about a whitening cream is an ideal setup for considering issues of racism. I expected more. Some thought-provoking ideas behind this 90-minute...

Anchuli Felicia King’s White Pearl addresses issues of casual racism and corporate culture in a 90-minute show.

I loved the ideas behind the play. A black comedy about a whitening cream is an ideal setup for considering issues of racism.

I expected more. Some thought-provoking ideas behind this 90-minute show, with some good cameo performances and a slick set. But not for me, and I am struggling to think of who I could recommend this one to.

The plot centres on a look ‘behind the scenes’ in the fictional Singaporean offices of Clearday Cosmetics, as the team reacts to the new TV commercial that has gone viral for all the wrong reasons.

An advertisement that might be considered to work in one particular region — but would be offensive in most — is also an interesting route to consider regional vs local and national vs global.

And having an office of staff drawn from Japan, India, Singapore, China, UK and USA is a great way in which to challenge ideas of a single pan-Asian culture – or even one way of speaking English.

The set is a definite highlight of this show, complete with professional advertising videos and trendy neon. Glossy, slick, and beautifully lit (Jeremy Allen [Designer], Damien Cooper [Lighting Designer], Anchuli Felicia King [Projection Designer]).

The stereotypes were well-observed and often beautifully played. Highlights were the performances by Nicole Milinkovic (Built Suttikul) and Mayu Iwasaki (Ruki Minami).

The development of the relationship between Soo-Jin Park (Deborah An) and Xiao Chen (Lin Yin) was convincingly portrayed, leading to a believable challenge of the dominant Priya Singh (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash).

Matthew Pearce’s Marcel Benoit, the only male character, was sufficiently needy and a believable foil to Milinkovic (and with an entertaining European accent).

However, I came away feeling very disappointed. The script had next to no external crisis management, as staff were portrayed as concentrating on the internal ‘who will get fired’ issues — which for me meant that the rise and fall of Singh needed to be more believable, paced, and nuanced.

Director Priscilla Jackman had the show running at full tilt when the pace needed more variation.

And I just didn’t find it very funny.

Some members of the audience found moments of humour, particularly when picking up on cultural references or being shocked at the behaviour of the all-female Clearday staff.

Cheryl Ho (Sunny Lee) relished the opportunity to play the manipulative jester role, as the self-selecting number two to Singh, and certainly attracted a number of chuckles from the Monday night audience.

But I was expecting much more.

The beauty industry has long fed on the inferiority complexes of its customers, but a particular trend for skin lightening products suited to Asian markets made headlines in the mid-2010s for everything it said about inherent prejudice. This trend was not necessarily new - think of the toxic...

The beauty industry has long fed on the inferiority complexes of its customers, but a particular trend for skin lightening products suited to Asian markets made headlines in the mid-2010s for everything it said about inherent prejudice.

This trend was not necessarily new – think of the toxic lead-based face paints of 18th century Europe, for example.

But in this age of BLM and #metoo are we really still so desperate to equate lighter skin with beauty?

Enter Clearday cosmetics – a dynamic start-up making bank from White Pearl, a pan-Asian solution-in-a-tube to the shame of darker skin.

But while the profits might be increasing, so are the hits on their latest advertisement which has just gone viral, for all the wrong reasons.

We join the key staffers in the Singapore office while they scramble to figure out what went wrong, and whose head should roll for it.

A thought-provoking comedy, White Pearl swings between tender and anarchic as we meet 6 women from diverse Asian backgrounds, each trying to make it in make-up while juggling her own identity challenges.

The dialogue-driven script allows different perspectives on racism and feminism to be tossed back and forth over the boardroom table.

Flipping convention, there’s only one male character – a stalker-ish love interest embodying Gallic stereotypes whilst playing around with French feminist theory.

The messaging around the beauty industry itself is as you might expect: spoiler – it’s corrupt and walks a very fine line when it comes to legal levels of chemical inclusions and what counts as ‘organic’.

But the main takeaway here is around the complexity of identity politics and performance, particularly between those who identify as ‘Asian’ by any of many definitions.

This is a big, loud performance giving sharp dialogue to its leads, all of whom were stellar in this Brisbane production.

And while it doesn’t go anywhere particularly, unexpectedly deep, it certainly provokes discussion and self-reflection as you laugh/cringe while corporate culture, virtue signalling, and identity politics duke it out.

Reviews

Thought-provoking

A rough-cut dramedy diamond that needs some polish

Great ideas but I was expecting much more

An audacious script and big, bold performances

Summary

White Pearl