American playwright Joshua Harmon knows his audience: predominantly white, educated, middle class and progressive. That’s what they see and hear in this 2018 play, which pointedly demonstrates white privilege with a cast of white actors. Their characters talk earnestly about diversity and inclusion, and about the people of colour in their lives whom we never see.

Simon Maiden, Kat Stewart and William McKenna in Admissions, Melbourne Theatre Company, 2022. Photo © Jeff Busby

As the punning title hints, Admissions demands that we confront the fact that white people are more often than not the gatekeepers, deciding which lucky few people of colour will join them among the good things in life. Are those people considered to have got in on merit, and are they truly accepted or just heartwarming statistics? In the end, are the gatekeepers willing to give up their privileged position on the inside so a disadvantaged person can get in and get ahead? This is heavy, challenging, controversial stuff, but Harmon makes the pill go down by also being ferociously funny.

His play is set in Hillcrest, an elite New Hampshire boarding school. Head of admissions Sherri...