What I liked
This show had a fairly impressive set design for a Fringe show, featuring a backdrop of signs signifying L.A. on one side of the stage and Hong Kong on the other. Having the characters move through and around the stage with suitcases was an excellent way to portray travel. The story structure, presenting the two stories side by side so they could be compared and contrasted, worked.
What I didn't like
The challenge in presenting these complex ideas of racism and privilege, is the right amount of subtlety in getting the point across. I feel like the scenes with the Hong Kong lawyer and her American friend in L.A. did that best. The HR scenes seemed a bit more exaggerated.
My overall impression
“Expatriated” portrays the differences in experiences of two attorneys who accept jobs away from their homes: a white woman who leaves L.A. for Hong Kong, and a Chinese woman who leaves Hong Kong to get a job in L.A. Their stories, presented side by side, highlight concepts of privilege, assumptions about race and culture, and the difficulties of immigration in America and relative ease of being an American ex-pat. Yet the main thing both characters experience is homesickness from living so far away from their places of origin.
