Published December 2024
Yoga Play at La Boite Theatre was a witty satire on wellness that gave its audiences exactly what we are all needing right now: a good laugh.
When Jojomon, a company selling yoga pants (their latest range “lavender-infused”) is outed for unethical child labour in their factory and their brand reputation takes a nosedive, they come up with a plan: find a guru who can vouch for their authenticity.
Hilarity ensues – a quest for social media influence and a healthy dose of corporate greed is, despite their best efforts to manufacture authenticity, solved in the end by a moment of self-discovery.
The set, bringing to mind the whitewashed sandstone and archways of Brisbane’s own James Street, was perfectly designed to locate the audience in the world of upper-class activewear flaunters.
“Get me a guru!” the newly instated CEO Joan booms to her employees. “We’ll start with the obvious… LA.”
In a culture obsessed with wellness, the company has become promoters of wellness to the point that it becomes unhealthy.
When company executive Raj admits to colleague Fred one day, as they sip on their green juice, that he might be… “stressed” (reported in a hushed tone), he realises from the horrified look on Fred’s face that he has broken the ultimate taboo at Jojomon – admitting that wellness has not solved all his problems.
After a false start with a young LA yoga instructor / influencer named Romola, Fred and Raj think they have finally discovered the perfect guru to save them.
They find him deep in the mountains of Nepal, living in a cave and offering his advice to people only in the dark – how much more authentic could they get?
But then what is authentic, anyway?
After grudgingly donating thousands to those less fortunate as part of a deal to get him to visit them in America, our corporate friends soon discover with outrage why he was operating in the dark.
He is white.
Raj, ethnically Hindu but not practising, is co-opted to learn what he can from the spiritually enlightened, white American English-teacher-turned-guru.
This leads to a deftly-managed cross-cultural interaction between the two in the final scene that leaves room for discomfort but also humour.
Yoga Play was a great excuse to have a laugh at the expense of ‘fitfluencers’ while also examining our own buy-in to greenwashed corporations divorced from ethics.
