Thai-Australian playwright Anchuli Felicia King is just 25 but her career is rocketing, and though it is still early days she already has a vigorous, distinctive, exciting theatrical voice.

In May, the Royal Court Theatre in London premiered her play White Pearl, which marked her first professional production. Since then Melbourne Theatre has staged a successful season of her drama Golden Shield, which emerged from its Next Stage program, and Feedrange Co is currently presenting a terrific production of her ruthlessly sharp play Slaughterhouse, structured around a series of interlocking monologues, as part of Belvoir’s independent program 25A.

Now, the National Theatre of Parramatta and Sydney Theatre Company are co-producing White Pearl in a dazzling production that has you riding the roller-coaster plot with your jaw on the floor at the brazen, daring brilliance of the writing. It’s a play that feels fresh, fearless and very funny.

Vaishnavi Suryaprakash, Shirong Wu, Catherine Van-Davies and Merlynn Tong. Photograph © Philip Erbacher

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