DoppleGang's (Sub)Version of Oz

Abstract

For the 2006 Dublin Fringe Festival, DoppleGang expanded their performance from a song-based cabaret to a theatre piece with songs, dance, and dialogue. Their performance, entitled 'Oz: A Fairytale Plot,' borrows songs, stories, and characters from different Oz-related sources to develop a unique performance piece specifically for the members of the group. The DoppleGang version of these stories emphasizes the journey towards self-knowledge that includes friendship, sexuality, and humour. The subversion of drag performance is relevant in the analysis of this production. Whereas drag historically is a performance of a gender inversion, the field of gender performance now expands beyond a binary of female-male, woman-man, or homosexual-heterosexual. These layers problematise an analysis within "the rigid code of hierarchical binarisms" and encourage a widening of the vocabulary for discussing issues of biological sex, of gender, and of sexuality beyond a binary opposition that assumes the person under consideration will fit one of the two available categories. Moving beyond binarisms, the DoppleGang prouctions do not concern themselves with how the audience members may read gender in the performance; their goal is entertainment rather than propaganda. With the pleasure of the spectator in mind, they create a space in which the validity of their characterizations is not a concern because it is inherent in their performance. It is this assumption of acceptance that liberates the human story from false oppositions and rigid codes of categorization that perpetuate a system of social oppression.