Review: One Boy's Challenge Of Living Across Cultures Comes To Life With Heart And Humour In THAI-RIFFIC

Wednesday 5th July 2017, 6pm, Monkey Baa Theatre, Lendlease Darling Quarter

Nathan Luff adapts Oliver Phommovanh's chlidren's novel THAI-RIFFIC to deliver a fun filled feast for the senses as it follows one boy's journey of discovering how to live between his family's heritage and his community culture. Directed by Lisa Freshwater, THAI-RIFFIC is presented with honesty, humour, audience interaction. This 70 minute work has something for all ages with a few beautiful messages to take away.

Presented with a mix of artistic styles, THAI-RIFFIC's central character Albert (Lengy) Lengviriyakul (Jemwel Danao) shares his inner thoughts on growing up as the son of a Thai migrants in suburban Australia. Like many children, Albert wants to belong and be seen as "normal", embarrassed by his family's desire to retain the culture of their homeland, which also includes running a Thai restaurant. Albert hopes that in leaving primary school behind him, he can now give the people at his new high school the impression that he comes from an 'average' Australian family that eats pizza, plays cricket, and shops at normal supermarkets. Instead he ends up making friends with the Indian Rajiv (Nat Jobe) who is fascinated with Thai food and Muay Thai. In addition, eccentric English Teacher Mr Winfree (Graeme McRae) has assigned a project on culture which Lengy, Rajiv and straight A student Hayley (Kate Betcher) must complete together.

Mark Thompson's seemingly simple set of a table and chairs within asymmetrical walls comes to life with the addition of Mic Grunchy's video design which incorporates animation, video and still images to help engage the young audience on different levels. The costuming is kept simple to draw on the sterotypes of the characters from a daggy dad (Lap Phan) and a housecoat clad Grandma (Lap Phan) swathed in scarves. Martin Kinnane's lighting works with the projections to emphasise the passage of time and draw focus to the moving action. Whilst Nate Edmonson's sound design is a touch to heavy at the start, making it hard to hear Danao's opening monologue, it settles to a comfortable level to colour the work without overpowering.

Pitched at primary school children, this multi layered school holiday offering has some wonderful messages about celebrating our differences and being proud of our heritage as Danao captures Lengy's growth of understanding with an honesty and relatability. Jobe captures Rajiv's joy of wanting to learn all about his friend's culture, highlighting the point that whilst Lengy may want to escape his heritage, other people are genuinely interested in it, and aren't all like Hayley and the kids at Primary School that used to tease him and only identify him as Thai. Whilst Hayley is somewhat singularly focused on achieving good grades Betcher also ensures that we see Hayley grow to wanting to be friends with Lengy and Rajiv and understand the Thai culture for more than just a school project.

cRae captures the spirit of the ideal teacher in his portrayal of Mr Winfree's unusual method of student engagement. Freshwater has thankfully added in some fun moments where Mr Winfree connects with his furry friends, appealing to the older audience members. Phan as Dad and Grandma are presented with a degree of cultural sterotyping along with generalisations that ensure they are recognisable regardless of the audience's own background. Dad has bad 'dad jokes' like many fathers and Grandma fusses and sews. Lengy's mother (Lena Cruz) and Hayley's mother (Ana Maria Belo) are both only seen on screen, one battling with modern technology, the other embracing technology for her home business, but both embarrassing their children.

Whilst this work is listed as for Children from 7 - 14 years of age, BWW Sydney attended with a 5 year old who thoroughly enjoyed himself, particularly the audience participation and the combination of live performance and animation. Parents with a range of children can still bring younger or older children to the show and have them engaged and entertained whilst Parents are also catered for as the work is presented with a maturity and respect for their audience, not talking down to the children. THAI-RIFFIC is a brilliant school holiday offering that should not be missed

THAI-RIFFIC

Monkey Baa Theatre 4-8 July 2017

www.monkeybaa.com.au/shows/thai-riffic

Seymour Centre

www.seymourcentre.com/events/event/thai-riffic