Playwright Dipika Guha wrote Yoga Play because she wanted a laugh.
“The world was teetering into the social and political polarisation that has now become our norm,” Guha says. “The spectre of fascism in America was looming, And I felt like it might be a good time to figure out how to bring laughter into my work.”
Well, the timing of the La Boite season of Yoga Play couldn’t be more apt, because we need a laugh now more than ever.
The idea that a playwright sets out to make us laugh rather than to lecture us is something that attracted me to this play. Bizarrely, we raced to the theatre after my wife had attended a three-hour yoga workshop. How appropriate to then see a play about yoga. Of course, Yoga Play is about so much more as it pokes fun at the whole wellness business and the corporate world.
Directed by internationally renowned Mina Morita, this is the debut Australian season of this very entertaining, but perhaps a tad overlong, satire. (Everything is too long, as a respected arts figure once told me.)
Morita says Guha’s “sharply hilarious exploration of corporate authenticity in relationship to the spiritual foundation of yoga via yoga pants is sure to bring belly laughs”.
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And it does, which I’m grateful for. Most of the time I’m at the theatre I’m groaning, so it’s refreshing to laugh for a change.
The premise of the play is an attractive one and another attraction was the fact that the cast was led by Andrea Moor, one of our finest actors. You’d go to see anything with Moor in it. Add the brilliant young Brisbane actor Thomas Larkin and there’s a double incentive right there. The rest of the cast is excellent too – Sydneysiders Jemwel Danoa, Nat Jobe and Camila Ponte Alvarez.
The play is about a group of people marketing yoga wear. Things go pear-shaped when they find out that their Indian factory employs child labour. They try to fake their way out of this dilemma when the BBC busts open the story.
If only they could find a genuine guru as their spokesperson to get them out of this mess. Well, they do but the guru is not quite as expected. I won’t give too much away on that score because just before interval you’ll find out why he is so unsuitable.
Moor plays Joan, leader of the corporate team behind a yoga-wear company that’s led by the mysterious and counter-cultural John, played by Thomas Larkin, who has an awful lot of fun patching in by video. He’s a Wizard of Oz-type figure. Larkin has a couple of other roles in the production, but I’ll let them reveal themselves.
Jewel Danoao plays Fred, a Singaporean who sounds like a Singaporean. Just add “la” to the end of a sentence to achieve this.
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Nat Jobe is Raj, an Indian from Delaware who is called on to go above and beyond to try to save the company by becoming what a friend of mine used to term “a genuine fake”.
Camila Ponte Alvarez also has several roles and is particularly hilarious as the flaky yoga teacher Romola, who is roped in to help with the major deception at the heart of the company’s attempts to prove themselves authentic.
She is also the disembodied voice of Mrs Kapoor, Raj’s mum, in a hilarious phone call scene with Larkin as the voice of Mr Kapoor. The Kapoors sound like the Indian version of Frank and Estelle Costanza from TV’s Seinfeld. Very funny, indeed.
There’s a lot of cultural appropriation going on in this play, not to mention racial and cultural stereotyping. Luckily, the playwright is originally from India, so she gets away with it.
While Yoga Play is set in California, it is directly relatable to Australia where yoga and wellness and leisurewear are all booming. I’m sure there are rooms and halls full of people saying “namaste” to each other as I write this.
All in all, it’s a very funny evening at the theatre and a fun way to wind down as we approach the silly season.
The play premiered in 2017 and still seems fresh. The cast is excellent and is anchored by Moor’s mastery. Great set, too, by James Lew, with lighting by Kate Baldwin and Wil Hughes as sound designer and composer. I do like a laugh. In fact, I need a laugh. How about you?
Yoga Play continues at La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, until November 23.
laboite.com.au