WHITE PEARL

About the show

Singapore, present day. In the sleek offices of Clearday™, a cosmetics company specialising in skin-whitening creams, a crisis unfolds as a racist ad goes viral. Priya, the Indian-Singaporean CEO of Clearday™, leads a team of young Asian women through the fallout of a disastrous advertising campaign. As a commercial featuring blackface and offensive stereotypes spreads across the internet, Priya and her multinational staff grapple with damage control, inter-office politics, and their own complicity in perpetuating harmful beauty standards. Through a series of increasingly frantic interactions, King explores the themes of corporate responsibility, internalised racism, and the complexities of pan-Asian identity in a globalised world. The play deftly navigates the tensions between the diverse staff members, each bringing their own cultural baggage and prejudices to the table. As the viral video’s view count rises inexorably, alliances shift, secrets emerge, and the façade of corporate unity crumbles. King’s script, peppered with multilingual dialogue and digital-age vernacular, offers a scathing critique of the beauty industry’s exploitation of racial insecurities while also examining the personal cost of assimilation and success. As the characters confront their own biases and the ethical implications of their work, the audience is left to ponder: In a world where identity is both a commodity and a battlefield, how do we reconcile our cultural heritage with the pressures of global capitalism?