Nakkiah Lui has likened her new play Black is the New White, which premiered last night at the Wharf Theatre, to the film Meet the Fockers – and with a relentless barrage of humour wrung from an avalanche of awkward, cringe-worthy moments, the comparison is an apt one.

Shari Sebbens is Charlotte Gibson, a young, successful Aboriginal lawyer who has brought her unemployed, contemporary classical composer fiancé to meet her affluent family and announce both their engagement and imminent move to New York, where she has been offered a scholarship to study for a PhD. Meanwhile, her father Ray (a former politician and Aboriginal activist played by Tony Briggs) would prefer she take an offered television job so as not to waste the opportunity to be “a young Aboriginal person with a platform.”

^{Shari Sebbens and James Bell in Sydney Theatre Company’s Black is the New White. Photos © Prudence Upton}

The scene is set with saccharine sweet banter between Charlotte and her fiancée Francis, played with puppy-dog enthusiasm by James Bell, who have arrived first...