Fil-Am’s play ‘Sticky Rice’ explores gay dating, attraction, self-worth 

“Sticky Rice” cast (from left) Joseph Alvarado, Christopher Juan and Raphael Buenaventura. CONTRIBUTED

SAN FRANCISCO — Filipino American playwright Boni Alvarez has a new a comedy “with very dark tones” that explores the dynamics of dating, relationships and what is considered attractive among gay Asian men.

His play “Sticky Rice,” wherein a group of gay, Asian friends living in San Francisco splinters apart when one of them brings his new boyfriend into the fold,  will have a one-night-only staged reading at Theatre Rhinoceros helmed by Fil-Am director Ely Orquiza.

Fil-Ams in the cast include Joseph Alvarado, Raphael Buenaventura and Christopher Juan. Fil-Am characters in the play include Sampson, a James Beard-nominated chef and Carlo, a professor of nursing.

Orquiza says that the Theatre Rhinoceros’ monthly staged reading series is an opportunity for the company and the community to hear new plays that are being considered for season programming for the following year. “The directors either pitch a play to produce or the company scouts a director to pair with a play to direct a reading that have been previously read by the artistic team.”

Alvarez’s recent credits include “America Adjacent” for Skylight Theatre and “Apartment Living” also for Skylight Theatre co-produced by Playwrights’ Arena.

Despise and desire  

Alvarez developed the themes for this play partly because of his observations of how people behave on dating apps. “I’ve always had such a visceral reaction to the phrase ‘no fats, no femmes, no Asians,’” referring to how some people list their aversions on their profiles.

“This very succinct phrase that expresses preference in such a hateful way, that popularly legitimized the further marginalization of the already marginalized.”

“On the other end of the spectrum, when I would see men on dating apps seeking Asian men, I would be equally disturbed.  These men are typically white. The language of their posts would be so colonial, oozing with exoticism.”

Alvarez says that he wanted to use his play to explore “the notion of ‘rice queens,’” referring to gay men who prefer Asian men, “and the gaysian body and sexuality in its own circle.”

Media and masculinity

Another topic that Alvarez wants to tackle is “masculinity itself in relation to Asian gay men, men who are traditionally emasculated.  The play has quite a bit of behavior that I think a lot of people would consider toxic.”

“In American media, Asian men have largely been depicted in an emasculated light, as the asexual nerd, the comedic foreign exchange student, the active yet sexless martial artist, the suffering gay butterfly.”

He says that he tends to take in what he sees in his surroundings. “I’ve always taken note of gay Asian men when I see them out and about and have noted who they’re with romantically, the types of men they’re partnered with, their behavior in relation to their partners.

“Generally, their partners are white or of another race other than Asian; there’s often a difference of size in stature; sometimes, you witness the old trope of the Asian butterfly in action.

“Besides my being from the Bay Area, I set the play in San Francisco because of its large Asian population. Beyond gay couplings, there are so many interracial couples in the Bay. Seeing an Asian woman with a white man is so common. It is not as common to see an Asian man with a white woman or a woman of another race.  People may say it’s just preference, but media affects and shapes that preference whether we acknowledge it or not.”

He goes on to explain that the characters in “Sticky Rice” have internalized such popular depictions. “The play explores what happens when they are forced to confront their own self-hatred.”

“Can these men embrace their masculinity and learn to celebrate the bodies they live in?  Sticky Rice is about unwrapping sticky rice, about unearthing gay Asian beauty outside of the white gaze and beginning on the journey to self-love.”

“Sticky Rice” staged reading is on March 14, 7 p.m. at Theatre Rhinoceros, 4229 18th St., San Francisco.