Basmati Bitch is Orwellian dystopia woven from the fabric of what was hidden in plain sight in 2020. Year Zero of the great Contagion. It is wickedly funny and profane and features gladiatorial cage-fighting. But love and lust give it heart and hope. Just like Orwell.
Rice trade. India is considering banning the export of most varieties of rice due to rising domestic prices. The country is the largest supplier of rice in the world, accounting for about 40 percent of global exports. The move could cause a spike in world rice prices, which are already high.
That news item appeared on the Geopolitical Futures website the morning after I saw Basmati Bitch. Prescient indeed!
The origins of Basmati Bitch are in her passions for anime, graphic novels, Muay Thai martial arts, Guy Ritchie movies. And just her personality in being a smart weirdo with a keen sense of black humour. The idea was to develop this as a web series. She is a graphic artist as well.
Lockdown of course, and the forced internment of the population saw the blossoming of this final product, along with its essential background philosophical ideas.
Director Ahi Karunaharan was born in Sri Lanka of Tamil descent, also came to New Zealand early in life. They have worked together on projects previously with similar pan-Asian themes.
The setting is a world where the fears of 2020 have become overarching. Climate disasters and supply chain failures. Rice is weaponised as a commodity and commands a large black market. Gangsters and cartels dominate.
Parallel to this is the endless business of human trafficking. As old as millennia. It defines humanity when seen over the long course. It has created the New World of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Out of a container ship in a port in New Zealand, we meet Shiva (Gemma-Jayde Naidoo). Carries a dark past and bristles with an undefined rage and anger.
She meets Bisma (Karishma Grebneff), an Immigration Officer who is conflicted in her role of rebuffing desperate people through bureaucracy, whilst suffering under the weight of compassion. Her mother keeps ringing her. She fantasizes about bawdy erotic trysts and keeps a journal. Writing like this is forbidden by law.
This is the set-up for the story which follows at a fast frenetic pace. At a little sacrifice to a smoother narrative flow.
Shiva is an MMA fighter, which she unleashes in the Immigration Office on a guard. This sets off an inspired train of thought from Bisma, which eventually leads to a centrepiece of expertly choreographed mass fight scenes.
It is a traverse stage for this show. Either end are first-floor balconies. Neon lighting and transparent curtains. The staging recreates the Chinatown atmosphere of continual night and the drizzle of steady rain, as in the magnificent original Blade Runner movie set.
Most of the play is performed in a nightclub called the Dragons Dojo. Where we meet Jin (Tian Tan) the owner heavily indebted to gangsters, and his best friend and bar manager Taj (Mo Nasir).
But it is the Gangster himself, Toby (Mel Odedra) who steals the show whenever he appears.
He articulates the darker heart of the play with relish. Audiences always have a guilty pleasure for arch-villains.
His opening soliloquy frames the premise. History is replete with seismic global disruptions/ Our survival instincts compels us to move.
His final one cuts to the heart of the matter. Human nature always bows and rolls over to the Alpha Male. It is a governing instinct and sex is as much about power and money, and not necessarily carrying love.
The devil is in the detail. Toby is an asthmatic. This is heightened to dramatic effect on the soundtrack, when he uses his inhaler. This references the infamous sadistic gangster Frank Booth (played by Dennis Hopper) from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Who sucked on a cylinder of oxygen when he was getting particularly nasty.
Like the authors favourite Guy Ritchie movies, there is a heist story involving a fair dose of black humour.
The geopolitical framing is key to understanding the background, and there is an imaginary timeline supplied in the programme to help the audience dial in.
The production plays around the various Asian stereotypes. It succeeds well, in that it skilfully breaks them and simultaneously reinforces the power of ancestral culture. This reviewer will disclose that he is an Indian born in New Zealand.
The narrative can get cluttered. The cast bring great energy to this production and their comedy timing is mostly on point. They display honed acrobatic skills with the use of weapons.
Basmati Bitch is huge in ambition and its geopolitical scope whilst grounding itself in the overriding human condition. People want connection and they look for love. Abrasive and wickedly funny is good for that.
Rev Orange Peel
Tickets on sale at Auckland Theatre Company