White Pearl, Sydney Theatre Company and Riverside's National Theater of Paramatta, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre

 

Anchuli Felicia King's comedy takes a Mamet-like look at high-powered business in a modern era where every corporate misstep can become a global social media crisis in seconds, and where a viral video can bring formerly powerful people to their knees. The fact that the cast is largely female and Asian (from various parts of Asia, from South Korea to India to China) changes the cultural context but not the ambition, ego and venom as the team tear themselves and each other apart in a chase for supremacy. 

This is a pretty nihilistic evening  -there's not a lot of hope or inspiration in here, unless you're somehow inspired that those making ruthless decisions can now be female and racially diverse rather than just stale white men. It's a very polished production by Priscilla Jackman, from Jeremy Allen's set and costume designs to the sharp technological soundscape of Michael Toisuta and Mee-Lee Hay, but it's a cold kind of polish, glittering but ruthless. 

Most of the oomph of the show relies on the six female leads (with a little on the one male side character) - Manali Datar's snobby Pria, Deborah An's analytical Soo-Jin, Nicole Milonkevic's fashionably dismissive Built, Shirong Wu's sensative Xiao, Melissa Gan's goofy Sunny and Kaori Maeda-Judge's  stoic Ruki. Stephen Madsen as the token male presents an egocentric bastard without care, but is largely sidelined from the main action. 

There's some intriguing ideas here, in particular the way that Asia as a concept acts to smooth over some fairly different cultures, about the beauty industry's exploitations, about the pandora's box of social media (sans Hope), and about capitalism trumping all other human concerns. But, much like Mamet, there's a nihlism here that makes this difficult to embrace.