Thrilling new workplace drama emerges from ‘Employee Handbook’
The cast of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s world-premiere The Employee Dharma Handbook, includes (from left) Megan Suri, Kapil Talwalkar, Kunal Dudheker, Kathryn Smith-McGlynn and Ranjita Chakravarty. Geetha Reddy’s workplace drama, a TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production, continues through Aug. 2. Photo by Kevin Berne
Talk about drama: the mere mention of the initials HR can send employers and employees alike into a vortex of panic, anger and frustration. The prospect of a play about an HR crisis at a Silicon Valley aerospace company seems, at first glance, to be something you wouldn’t willingly spend money to see.
But think again. The TheatreWorks Silicon Valley world-premiere production of The Employee Dharma Handbook by Bay Area playwright Geetha Reddy is one of the most fascinating, complex and invigorating plays you’ll see this year.
At Sequoia Dynamics Aerospace, the (fictional) company in question, a brilliant female engineer, Leela (Megan Suri), has been passed over for a promotion by a less-qualified male coworker (Kunal Dukheker as Baasu). Like their manager, Krish (Kapil Talwalkar), and many of their colleagues, Leela and Baasu are of South Asian/Indian heritage. It is suggested to Leela by a possibly opportunistic coworker that she has been the victim of discrimination: not relating to her gender or her race but rather her caste.
Megan Suri is Leela, a Silicon Valley aerospace engineer facing an HR crisis. Photo by Kevin Berne
That accusation opens up a complex chain of reactions because Leela, who is American born to India-born parents, has never really considered caste because, she believes, it's an outdated system ranking Indians from elite Brahmins to "untouchable" Dalits.
What begins as Leela's understandable disappointment over losing a promotion she deserved spirals into a deeply introspective, potentially soul-crushing experience. So of course HR gets involved, and that makes things even more complicated. Val from HR (Kathryn Smith-McGlynn) is Black and has dealt with discrimination in the workplace before – just not caste discrimination, about which she knows very little. She doesn’t even know if she’s legally allowed to ask an employee – sorry, team member! – what caste they are.
Val is committed to social justice, but then there’s also the issue of good old capitalism. This caste kerfuffle is happening mere weeks before an important launch taking a payload to one of Jupiter’s moons, after which there will be a big, juicy IPO, and longtime employees, including Val, stand to make a whole lot of money. Perhaps the offending manager might enroll in anti-discrimination training, and the whole thing will just blow over.
Leela (Megan Suri) meets with HR manager Val (Kathryn Smith-McGlynn). Photo by Kevin Berne
Reddy is a skilled dramatist, so naturally the whole thing will not simply blow over. There are showdowns, evasions, eye-rolling stupidity, startling courage and a lot of corporate dithering. When you really think about it, HR is attempting to manage the human psyche and all its generational, cultural, highly flawed mess. It’s an impossible task, really, and when the HR person and the CFO (Ranjita Chakravarty as C.K.) have a decades-long, slow-burn, will-they/won’t-they semi-romance, you can bet the messiness only grows from there.
Director Snehal Desai expertly navigates Reddy's shifting tones. There’s a lot of comedy here, which the superb cast handles well, but this is quite a serious play digging into complicated issues of identity, self-worth and the porous line between the personal and professional self.
Suri’s Leela is instantly recognizable as someone you probably know – brilliance bolstered by fleeting confidence and confounded by insecurity. Happily, her brilliance really shines through in Suri’s dynamic, powerful performance. Talwalkar’s Krish, the manager who may not even be aware of his bias, is an intriguingly layered character – just when you think you know who he is, there’s more to reveal, and it’s interesting to see a character in a fraught situation engage in what seems like genuine introspection.
If there’s anything wrong with this stunning new play, it’s that it doesn’t quite know when to end. Several moments feel like natural stopping points, inviting the audience to wrestle with the implications on its own. Instead, additional scenes arrive, slightly diluting the play's otherwise remarkable power.
Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Maybe, but this is without question the most riveting Employee Handbook around, and you should begin your onboarding process immediately.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Geetha Reddy’s world-premiere The Employee Dharma Handbook continues through Aug. 2 in a TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Running time: 100 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $54-$104 (subject to change). Call 877-662-8978 or visit theatreworks.org .
