Everyone has problems to deal with – in the boardroom or the basement, global or local, business or personal. Two multicultural women making their way in modern Australia forge a powerful, if unlikely, friendship that gets results.

The play certainly has elements of all of the above in it, but this was not its strength.  From my perspective as the audience, it attempted to cover too much, both in time and space, and subsequently relied heavily on stereotyping for theatrical effect and social commentary.

The manipulation of stereotypes was the play’s greatest strength and this was further enhanced in that it showcased the versatility and depth of talent of the two actresses, Kristy Best and Hsiao-Ling Tang.  The stereotypes of the “Indian Princess” and “Chinese Cleaner” set the foundations for the serious aspects of the play and its social commentary on contemporary Australia while the minor characters helped to flesh out the storyline and facilitate comic relief – who could forget the Russian Supervisor or the Assistant to the Indian Minister!

Using the “Indian Princess” as a Narrator to drive the play’s storyline was not as effective a device as it would have been in a one person / monologue play.  Overall, any depth to the main characters that the backstories provided, such as attempting to humanise the young, corporate ladder climbing Indian Princess or generating empathy for the hard working Chinese Cleaner, was diminished by the inclusion of the bigger global issues.    The characters never truly move beyond the two dimensional stereotypes and the global issues become only superficial background.

The stage setting was simple and appropriate to most of the scenes where these dealt with the office environment. The sound and lighting was used effectively to support the actresses.

Rice is very much like its “two endings”; the hoped for fairy tale happy egalitarian ending in attempting to successfully explore and expose the big and small issues, the global and the personal; and the problematic reality in that it uses excellent acting and production to extract the most social commentary and entertainment from manipulating stereotypes but trying to do more. 

By Megan Ralph