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The admissions office at an elite American university becomes the crucible for debates about access and diversity, responsibility and opportunity, in Amy Ng’s second play. Chinese student Angela is a gifted violinist, but something lurks in her perfect academic record – she accused a teacher of raping her. He was cleared. Birch, the old guard admissions officer, doesn’t want to touch it but a new politicised, idealistic young diversity officer, Mercy, tries to help the girl. Until she discovers the case isn’t as clear as it seems…
Amy Ng is happy to grasp the nettle when it comes to prickly topics. She’s brave to explore a rape case with genuine shades of grey, presenting it as so complex that even Mercy, the most ardent feminist, wobbles in her support. Ideologies, systems, and quotas often trump humanity in this play – and not only in relation to Angela’s case. The diversity department, trying to make the university less white and privileged, often seems to be playing an absurd game of disadvantage top trumps: Asians no longer qualify for ‘affirmative action’; they need poor African-American kids this year. The department is also riddled with its own inherited sexism: Ng throws in stuff about men getting over-paid and over-promoted.
Unfortunately, her characters speak like so many mouthpieces rather than people. Mercy spouts statistics, and hits topical issues like she’s playing whack-a-mole. It is all terribly on the nose. Angela, meanwhile, is given long, emotive, metaphor-heavy speeches about Bach, her love of music always having to relate her personal desires and trauma. Some of these have an eloquent power in Anna Ledwich's production, but I spent a lot of the play thinking: no-one talks like this.
And sadly, the cast often fail to carry the iffy dialogue. Teresa Banham is good as Birch, showing a frosty jobsworth slowly thawing, and Bo Poraj gives touchly-feely new admission guru Ben the appropriate charisma. But Jennifer Leong struggles with the admittedly tricky part of Angela, failing to find the fluency and nuance to convince.
All of which leaves the more implausible plot developments of ‘Acceptance’ exposed; it just seems unlikely that the girl would pour her heart out to a random admissions officer, and inconceivable that she’d get so involved. This is a play you need to swept up in, in order not to pick holes – but here neither the writing nor acting make it that easy to even, well, accept the basic premise.