Breaking the Binary

La Mama’s 2015 Exploration series provides the opportunity for theatre practitioners to present works in progress and creates a space for real experimentation. Breaking the Binary is a fine example of the kind of venture the series seeks to encourage and nurture.  YGLAM is a Performing Arts Project run by Merri Community Health Services for same-sex attracted and gender diverse young people aged between 14 and 25.

The piece is enormously genuine and authentic as well as compassionate, sensitive and extremely gentle. The performance encompasses a range of techniques including the delightful use of shadow puppets to stage a fairy tale; the kind that perpetuates strict and sometimes suffocating gender roles. However, the genre is not treated in a hostile manner, but rather it is delicately and decisively used to expose the subtle and persistent ways our culture inculcates gendered behaviour.

Scenes of family life depict individuals who are striving to assert or imagine a different gender to that which has been imposed upon them and they are performed with a disarming naturalness and honesty. The “verbatim” segments deliver dialogue in asynchronous chorus, aided by mobile technology. The effect is striking and alerts us to the way our brains are systematically trained to think in gender binaries. The play is irresistibly warm and embracing and well on its way to being an important production.

Patricia Di Risio