Rice
The North Wall Arts Centre
 

ATC’s latest production is a stylish two-hander exploring the communication and identity issues of immigrants, in this case a third generation Indian Australian businesswoman and a first generation Chinese Australian cleaner.

Effortlessly slipping between a dozen or so roles, Anya Jaya-Murphy and Angela Yeoh, playing the respective main characters of Nisha and Yvette, establish a raft of family and business associates with amusingly sharp physical and vocal changes. These abrupt transformations and brief interchanges on a sterile, minimalist office set create a cartoon strip style to the production.

Ambitious, workaholic Nisha sees herself as the company’s Indian executive but is totally at sea when returning to India to try to land a contract supplying Australian rice to the government for public distribution while failed entrepreneur and cleaner Yvette has alienated herself from her Chinese roots and cannot deal with her feisty daughter’s generational values and attitudes.