The Uncomfortable Truth
A Review of White Lion, Brown Tiger
K. Fernandez, M. Lacas, N. Fagant - Photo by David Wong
As I entered the Teesri Duniya Theatre located in the Cité-des-Hospitalières, I was certainly grateful I'd already navigated what my poor sense of direction once referred to as a labyrinth. In front of the Rangshala Studio, a Better Bargains logo is stapled with the words “we are hiring!” I look to my left and encourage my friend to apply. Hasn’t she been looking for a job?
This was before I realized that Better Bargains, is, in fact, the fictional thrift store that we are about to witness the fistfight of two Sri-Lankan employees in.
The set is just as enveloping, a perfect replica of a manager’s office. A desk covered with files and stacks of papers, a computer, a phone—everything you’d expect. There were unorganized boxes, unfolded clothes, and... a yoga mat? I was getting flashbacks from all the minimum wage job interviews I had been to over the past few years.
Lasantha, a Sinhalese-Canadian employee stomps on set along with Rishan, a recent Tamil immigrant. Later joined by Tiffany, the Better Bargains manager. I had forgotten my notebook, and was writing notes on a scrap piece of sheet music, which I found I didn’t really need at all. From start to finish, I was engrossed in the production.
White Lion, Brown Tiger refuses to give the audience an easily digestible moral compass. No character comes across entirely good or bad; instead, as the play unfolds, they are all revealed to be deeply flawed. It’s something I’ve always appreciated in art, the willingness to explore the “bad.” Letting characters exist in an uncomfortable state of in-betweenness where blame is alive, shifting allegiances and loyalties. While I may have my own biases, the narrative strays away from the typical hero-versus-villain dynamic. We find ourselves wondering, who, if anyone, is right. The play intertwines this chaos with political undertones.
M. Lacas, K. Fernandez - Photo by David Wong
Even in Canada, the remnants of the Sri Lankan conflict shape their interactions. Lasantha and Rishan carry a quiet resentment toward each other, shaped by histories they didn’t choose but can’t quite escape. Causing them to clash not only from their actions, but differences as well.
Lasantha’s repeated calls for a “ceasefire,” his sneakers in the colors of the Palestinian flag, is a reminder of how the ethnic and religious conflict of Sri-Lanka explored in this production linger far beyond. After twenty-six years of civil war, the trauma doesn’t vanish. It’s carried, weaponized, and woven into everyday life.
Beneath the employees’ tensions, their shared experience as South Asian men in a presumably predominantly white workplace binds them together in the face of a manager whose words carry racist undertones. The lines between their differences blur. Not out of an act of reconciliation, but as survival.
White Lion, Brown Tiger challenges our perception of the model minority and what it means to be, or not to be one. It exposes what corporations call “diversity” on paper, brochures of visible minorities and meaningless words that are said to mask the ugliness that lies beneath the performance. Layers of systemic racism that companies and people try desperately to hide through facades of a saviour complex. The fight between Lasantha, Rishan and Tiffany isn’t simply a physical one between two employees. It brings to light a collision of three very separate identities, and the impacts they have in the workplace.
The ending leaves the audience at a loss for words, bringing forth a horrid truth. One that may be hard to face, but that I encourage all of you to find out.
White Lion, Brown Tiger is open til 23 October, 2025. For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit the Teesri Duniya website.
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