THEATRE REVIEW: Rice - HOME, Manchester.

It is a well-kept secret that Australia has some sterling playwrights whose work should be seen a lot more in Britain. And thankfully, Actors Touring Company is committed to bringing international plays to the United Kingdom. Michele Lee’s “Rice”, a pared-back, austere two-hander for two female actors of strong technical skill, is currently at HOME, Manchester, by a co-production of Actors Touring Company, Orange Tree Theatre and Theatre Royal Plymouth.

Michele Lee had been originally inspired to write the script to combat the narrow range of roles available to actors of East Asian and South Asian descent – an issue found in both Australia and the United Kingdom. Her cast of two between them played a very wide range of characters – this reviewer lost count, but is estimating around ten – and they included women, men, cocky youthful ones, life-beaten older ones, draggled office cleaners, swaggering executives, and people of Australian / American / Chinese / Indian / Russian background. A very special mention to accent coach Catherine Weate: her skills were essential to bringing this story of capitalism and geopolitics to life.

Anya Jaya-Murphy performed the core character of Nisha: a young Bengali-descended Australian executive who wants to put the fictional Australian rice company she works for, Golden Fields, on the map. As she attempted to deal with the procrastinating Indian government, her new American boss, her boyfriend’s issues with his food truck business, and her grandmother’s wanderings off due to dementia, Jaya-Murphy was taut and passionate and laser-sharp with focused ambition. Which was regularly turned against her: Nisha walking through a squidgy rice field in a new sari and bare feet, expensive shoes in one hand, was a lovely picture of undermined dignity.

Angela Yeoh, as core character Yvette and multiple others, stole every scene she was in. Yvette, an older Chinese-Australian migrant working as the cleaner for Nisha’s office, should have been invisible and inaudible. Instead she had plenty to say and, in Yeoh’s performance, had a mischievous edge and constant expressiveness that never left, even when she was at her most underdog. Yeoh shone at playing the other multiple characters as well, jumping effortlessly across race, gender and class, and provided most of the universe of the play just through her performances.

Designer Hyemi Shin created a sleek white office space that could be multiple locations, and had some rather ingenious furniture features that opened out from the desk. Jaya-Murphy’s lime-green suit and Yeoh’s sapphire-blue cleaning uniform never varied, regardless of which characters they inhabited. Lighting designer Bethany Gupwell gave a cool, corporate feel, with some flashing lifts and hot orange Indian sun. Composer and sound designer Lex Kosanke added a little cold synthesiser.

Director Matthew Xia enhanced the spikiness in Lee’s script: these were not women who lived to please others, and their developing awkward friendship was carefully measured. Underneath seemed to be a genuine anger that people’s lives in another country could be considered as just pawns in a petty Western executive’s game.

Reviewer - Thalia Terpsichore
on - 29.3.22