This show presents the award-winning podcast, Brown Girls Do It Too, in all its juicy coconut glory. Coconuts, brown on the outside and white on the inside, are used as the recurring motif to encapsulate something many international people face: the conflict between where you are from and where you are “from” from. With their animated comedic direction, Poppy and Rubina invite the audience into their teenage bedroom to explore the cultural entanglement of their roots and the forces of white idolatry.
When Bristo Square’s Cowbarn is transformed into a teenage girl’s pink, poster-crammed bedroom, you know you’re in for a wild night. The show is a girls’ sleepover done right, with an interactive game of ‘Never Have I Ever’, a karaoke sesh, and hot tea spilled about sex, bodies, and overbearing mothers. I watched them scoop a training church minister from the audience, make him sit in the middle of the bed, and playfully accuse him of outrageous coconut crimes. It was brutal, but props to him for being a good sport!
With the way that their conversations flowed so naturally, I really couldn’t tell if it was rehearsed. The dialogue between them is honest, raw, and unapologetically explicit. They discussed the intimate details we don’t typically share, confessing secrets they wouldn’t want their mums to know. They’re broadcasting them to the whole world, but God forbid the aunties find out!
While I loved that their show catered to their target audience, it did unfortunately mean that some of their clever jabs at Muslim South Asian culture were sometimes missed by the multicultural crowd. But I’ll put my foot down and say that non-white cultures should not have to try and accommodate everyone. I say own it. Own your delicious cuisine, your slang, and your weird kinks. As a fellow whitewashed Asian myself, I’ll be waiting for my call from the “Coconut Helpline”.
Brown Girls Do It Too: Mama Told Me Not To Come is running until 24 August at Cowbarn at Underbelly, Bristo Square.
Buy tickets here.
Image courtesy of Mark Senior, provided to The Student as press material.