This vivisection of self, this internalized inability to accept worth and complex identity that lies outside of compartments and categories, is most excruciatingly endured by individuals who identify as multiracial or biracial. In folkLAB’s latest collaborative production, OTHER, the intricacies, frustrations, prejudices, and challenges that stem from the constant erasure of being multiracial. Director, creative designer Kelsey Robinson brought the show to life as a way of depicting and examining the loss of self and identity that is painfully normalized for individuals who identify as biracial or multiracial. Robinson reached out to four fellow performers who also identify as multiracial/biracial to collaborate on a piece that could give an audience a compelling but educational window into their experiences as multiracial/biracial folks (the pressure and anguish of not resembling or relating to your family; the continually homogenization and erasure of personhood, signified by being categorized as “other;” etc.)
It was refreshingly surprising—but, in hindsight, profoundly logical and meaningful—to have the setting for the immersive, interactive staging of OTHER be that of a youth performing arts academy (the cleverly titled All Shapes School for the Arts). As you proceed throughout your perhaps twitchingly nostalgic school day experience—taking tests, traipsing from class to class, awkwardly sitting through lunch—you are confronted with the unpleasant segregations of A.S.S. Perniciously yet subtly, the audience (as students) are divided up, based on their answers on a scantron test, into groups of shapes. As you learn more about the shape-category you have been divided into, you begin to glean the stereotypes, bigotries and denigrating systemic beliefs that inform each shape-group and the expectations for you based on your shape-identity. You are gifted at dance and musical performance. You are in touch with the earth. You are lazy and unmotivated. You are expected to clean up for all the other shapes. You are expected to watch and dictate as one shape does all the work for you. And then, at the heart of the matter, there are the “students” who have been given no shape whatsoever. Unable to fit into any of the group-shapes profiles, the shapeless students are thoughtlessly stuck with one of the groups, are treated with confusion and disdain, and aren’t allowed basic accommodations. The damagingly caricatured stereotypes that inform each shape group lead to a complete abnegation of those who do not fit the mold.
The commitment to the flawlessness of the production and impermeability of the authenticity of their characters (which can frequently prove to be the real challenge and downfall of immersive/interactive theatre) was not necessarily what made OTHER so moving and provoking. Instead, the raw emotion and biting harshness that each of the artists involved—Brenden Peifer, Jalina McClarin, Diane Ghogomu and Jason Gordon (Jgo3000)—exhibited throughout the piece exquisitely conveyed the realities and nuances of their experiences and the attitudes they individually and collectively have lived through. Each performer struck a disarming balance between the ferocity levied by the external world bent on othering multiracial/biracial individuals, and the anguish and alienation routinely felt by multiracial/biracial individuals. Jason Gordon and Diane Ghogomu, both deftly integrating their backgrounds as educators into their expertly-crafted characters, illustrated the automatic biases and favoritism that function surreptitiously and explicitly in everyday life, and how they inform the fierce binaries, we are socialized not to question.
OTHER unfolded with the appropriate admixture of improvisation, interpretative mixed-style, and organic, interactive dynamics to make the show’s takeaway lastingly impactful. Never once did the show veer into the realm of didactic—though indeed, the prejudices towards an erasure of multiracial/biracial people are such insidiously complex issues that they could be endlessly taught and lectured about. The learning moments or subtle epiphanies come naturally and effortlessly, and the conversations that are uncomfortably dappled with the ugly remarks or expectations that we are accustomed to hearing that further oppress those who exist as “others” are vividly real. OTHER is a reflection not only of the talents and passions of the performers responsible for the show but of the glaring deficiency of dialogue around multiracial/biracial lives that stems for the systemic silencing and identity-eradication of multiracial/biracial individuals. Using charged lived experiences, incredibly smart and funny situational construction, and the awkward vulnerability of being thrown back into a school environment that renders, OTHER captured the anger and painful isolation forced upon and internalized so routinely, and also illustrated the importance and brilliance of the stories and people who rightly and steadfastly refuse to be “others.”
OTHER: multiracial folklore by folkLAB closed on December 16. For more information about folkLAB and their future projects click here.
Eva Phillips is celebrating her third year in Pittsburgh, third year writing for PGH in the Round, and twenty-seventh year not getting murdered (shockingly, despite all odds). She relocated to the brittle Steel City from Virginia to pursue her Masters in Literary and Cultural Studies at CMU (with a concentration in film theory and film criticism, and intersections with feminism and gender), and has spent the past few years in Pittsburgh cultivating her writing career, developing her blog https://www.tuesgayswithmorrie69.net/, raising two show cats, and widening her perspectives on the ever-evolving spectrum of theatre. She only has one Les Miserables tattoo out of her 32 tattoos, and she finds that morally reprehensible.
Categories: Archived Reviews