Sexism In Theatre: We Get It

If you want to highlight the big issue of industry sexism, what better way to do it than to attack it from the inside.

Elbow Room’s 'We Get It’ is the brain child of theatre makers and co-Directors Emily Tomlins and Marcel Dorney. The production sees a cast of actresses pick apart what is really going on inside theatres and rehearsal rooms.

Based on the true stories of the cast members and writing team, the performance depicts a reality television show where each of the cast must complete a whole range of acts, in order, to win. “[‘We Get It’] is about five women, who are in a competition being pitched against each other. The prize is that they get to play their favourite female role in the Western canon, in a proper theatre company’s big show,” Emily says.

On a more serious note, however, the performance lifts the lid on the true representation and treatment of women in the performance industry, as well as in the media and online. The ladies won’t give more away, but the truthful yet playful nature of the performance certainly touches the hearts of audiences and cast members alike, as each performer shared their own very real, personal experiences with sexism and other discrimination during the writing of the script.

“We sat around for two weeks and talked about our experiences and the roles we always wanted to play as a young women in acting school or as a little girl, and why we didn’t think we’d be able to. What the limitations of these roles were and then what had been our treatment around it as well.

“We could write a show that goes for weeks really, with all the material we came up with. Everything that you see and hear in [‘We Get It’] is coming from lived experience.”

Truth be told, it can be challenging to be so brutally honest about the situation, as audiences and the cast have found. “We’re talking about things that people often don’t want to talk about… so, there are people that are going to find it really difficult,” Emily says.

“Hopefully [audiences] go away vibrating from it, then maybe it will make them think and maybe it will make them change something in their thinking along the line. It doesn’t always happen instantly for people when they see a good piece of theatre, but we’re just up for people coming along and reacting in a truthful way, whatever way that is.”

Emily Tomlins

However, Emily says the best reaction is any reaction, and if their performance lights a fire in your belly, or even just opens your eyes, they’ve done their job.

“The biggest compliment to us, which happened a lot in Melbourne when we performed there, is that people stick around in the foyer and they want to talk about it. They want to talk about it with each other and sometimes people don’t always agree and that’s fine as well, but we need to talk about this because everyone has their own experience.”

'We Get It' performs Brisbane Powerhouse 15-25 June.