Review: FEAST FESTIVAL 2015: HEAVIER THAN AIR Takes The Classroom Into The Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Friday 27th November 2015

The annual Feast Festival is a celebration by Adelaide's LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Inter-sexual, and Queer) community that covers a wide range of events and performances, and is both welcoming and inclusive. The first of three performances that I saw this evening in the Nexus Theatre, part of the Nexus Multicultural Centre, was Heavier Than Air, a piece about being a teacher as well as fitting into one of the categories in this community.

The work is performed by Anne Harris and Rachel Forgasz, and was directed by Stacy Holman Jones, all of whom work at Monash University. Two years in development, the work is based on interviews with numerous Australian LGBTIQ teachers, the transcripts being used to create several composite characters.

Teachers have long been expected to be aware of, and deal appropriately with all forms of diversity in their students, racial, sexual, physical, religious, and more, but teachers themselves seem not to be considered and have no backing for their own diversity. They have nothing and nobody to fall back on, other than themselves or, if lucky, other teachers in similar circumstances.

Through the range of characters that they play, Harris and Forgasz take us into the school to illuminate the things that LGBTIQ teachers can face and how they can feel about them. Children can be intrusive and create discomfort, whether unintentionally or by design, and all teachers have to react to their curiosity and questioning, as awkward as it might be. Ones sexuality is a very private thing and many teachers do not wish to reveal their orientation. The classroom is a very difficult place in which to maintain ones privacy.

Having been a teacher, albeit as a straight male, there was much here that was familiar, particularly when one of the artists played an overly inquisitive child, or when we, the audience, became the class, learning to make paper aeroplanes. There is so much to engage with in this informative and powerful work, and it should have a long life way beyond this Festival.

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