Lighten Up Comes To SBW Stables Theatre In November

We live in a multicultural environment and proudly champion the fact, but how much of this cross-cultural influence do we see permeating through the arts? New production Lighten Up looks to tackle some of the prejudices and nuances of cultural identity through the light-hearted vehicle of romantic comedy.

After a highly successful run with Bollywood films, including starring roles in the blockbustersKites andLove You To Death,NIDA-trained Indian-Australian actor Nicholas Brown has teamed up with stand-up comedian Sam McCool in writing Lighten Up, exploring the in-between of mixed races and cultures that much of our modern Australian society is founded upon. And what better way than through the medium of comedy?

Helmed by director Shane Anthony, the production’s premise pivots on Indian-Australian man John Green and his desire to star in the whitewashed soap opera Bondi Parade: think blue-eyed, blonde-haired, beach-bound stereotypes. There’s only one problem: he’s simply too brown. His mother is intent on cleansing the family of its mixed ethnicity by leading John towards procreating with a white Australian woman, along with her own skin-bleaching, a practice which writer and actor Brown found to be overly prevalent in India.

When John falls for an indigenous woman, the ‘true-blue’ fantasy is brought into turmoil – as the play unfolds it draws attention to the skewed Australian idea of cultural identity, as we watch John’s unflinching desire to embrace the ‘true-blue’, and what that awkward term really entails in a modern context.

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