What would you do to survive in the corporate activewear world? Yoga Play asks the question, with hilarious results

"Breathe in through your nose, breathe out through your mouth — and make a tiny noise."

At the LA-based yoga apparel company Lululemon Jojomon, box breathing is the solution for everything, liquid lunch is normal, wellness is performance and ethical scandals are really just authenticity crises.

This is the overwhelming mindset in the "tale of downward dog and downward profits" that is Yoga Play.

Written by US playwright and screenwriter Dipika Guha, the satire has enjoyed critical acclaim since its 2017 debut in the US.

And now we finally have an Australian version, showing at La Boite Theatre in Meanjin/Brisbane until November 23 after a successful run last month at Riverside Parramatta on Dharug Country.

Yoga Play revolves around a morally grey, white American girlboss of a certain age

Joan, played here by Andrea Moor, was recently hired as Jojomon's chief executive by its delusional founder, John. Unfortunately for her, John wishes Joan's problematic predecessor was still in the job, but he had to be ousted after a public-facing fatphobia gaffe that tanked Jojomon's sales.

Almost immediately after starting her new role, Joan is faced with a child labour scandal, which further threatens the already-precarious company's viability.

The executive team desperately trying to help save Jojomon comprises Raj (Nat Jobe), a young, first-generation US-Indian man with a lot of complicated feelings about identity, and Fred (Jemwel Danao), a young, people-pleasing queer Singaporean man with a precarious visa situation.

The main cast is supported by Camila Ponte Alvarez as Romola, a yoga teacher with an excruciatingly non-existent awareness of the traditional origins and intentions of the practice. Somehow, Romola is the "expert" the Jojomon execs call on to help them better understand yoga.

This world full of imperfect characters is a perfect entry point for deeper issues

At its core, Yoga Play is an interrogation of "the idea of selling spirituality in a world in which we are so desperate to have any little bit that we can," director Mina Morita tells ABC Arts.

From there, it aims to get audiences thinking about how much wellness is really about rampant consumerism, which also happens to systematically exclude anyone who isn't rich, thin, straight, able-bodied, and white.

And, finally, it's about how cultural appropriation, cultural appreciation and assimilation "work inside of us and inside of corporate structures as we try to belong".

And yet, this play is a comedy.

Guha and Morita (who have known each other for more than 15 years) believe laughing about deep issues allows us to consider them differently.

"It's a little bit disarming, which we very much need right now," says Morita.

The Australian version differs to US Yoga Play in a few ways — but not this big one

Most of the characters in the Australian version of Yoga Play are American, which Morita says was "really important to Dipika", for whom sense of place in this story felt vital.

This does feel like a missed opportunity at times, as Australia has a distinct brand of corporate wellness that we are well versed in laughing at and interrogating (Byron Baes, anyone?). And the Australian cast pulls off the requisite US accents with varying, sometimes distracting, levels of success.

However, the set and costume design by James Lew offers a refreshing point of difference to previous productions.

All light woods, curved lines, pastels and calming clean surfaces, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd accidentally stumbled into an on-trend yoga studio instead of a theatre.

And yet the set somehow also functions as a conference room "that ultimately exists to further the corporate ambition".

Every costume exists in conversation with the modern set, and toes the line between expressing the individuality of each character while remaining mindful of the rules of corporate attire.

This is in stark contrast to previous iterations of the play, some of which have felt stuck in the past, visually (think: flat-pack furniture, cluttered surfaces and a lack of cohesive visual identity in line with early 2000s aesthetics). None of those things are necessarily aspirational by 2024 standards, and aspiration is a big part of the insidious appeal of the wellness industry.

Joan, Raj and Fred feel fresh too

The original version of chief executive Joan, Morita says, was "corporate and driven to an extreme".

Over the course of rehearsals, however, Moor and Morita realised how important it was "that she was also vulnerable".

That added vulnerability helps Joan stand out as a character beyond being the lead. As does the fact that Joan isn't a "safe" person for people of colour like Fred and Raj even though she contends with misogyny and ageism in her everyday life as a woman trying to make it in the corporate world.

Morita says that was important to put in the play.

"What is challenging to all of us is when [a person like Joan] also has their own bias and is ultimately willing to do [problematic things] that capitalism encourages them to do for financial gain.

"There are so many times where [marginalised] people move into positions of power and either don't realise their bias, or, in the desperation of being put between a rock and a hard place, think that doing the wrong thing to survive or to save their employees is OK."

This is why the last scene of Yoga Play is particularly profound to her.

"The message is that even in a very difficult corporate space or system, if you're not putting compassion for others first and not spending the time to understand your bias and complicity, then these acts that are seemingly small to you have profound impact and can destroy everything else.

With a 140-minute run time, Yoga Play is on the long side… but that extended time allows for something special

There's the exploration of more than one immigrant perspective in Raj and Fred's distinct and real experiences. Not only is their relationship and dynamic refreshing, both characters were so clearly written and brought to life using the "nothing about us, without us" principle.

That long run time also allows for a simultaneously nuanced and funny consideration of the form racism and other types of exclusion take in liberal spaces.

And it gently asks each audience member to consider how they might be complicit in the performance of virtue that's rife in this age of wellness.

In this sense, there's something for everyone in Yoga Play.

It has the rare ability of being able to meet audience members with different lived experiences and understandings where they're at, giving them plenty to think about — and even more to laugh about.

La Boite Theatre's production of Dipika Guha's Yoga Play runs until November 23.