Lara Ricote: What does it all mean?! And why won’t anyone answer?

Welcome to our Fringe Debuts 2022 series, where comedians taking their first show to Edinburgh Fringe will give you a little taster of what to expect, an insight into their world, or really super weird musings on something equally bizarre — to be honest, we just let them run with it. If you’re readying yourself for a giant lol injection in August, now’s your chance to find something NEW to add to your list.

Lara Ricote is performing GRL/LATNX/DEF, a show about fitting into boxes: the girl box, the Latin box, the hard of hearing box… Here she talks about leaning into her own experience of the world to write a show about her identity juggling.

Hi! I’m Lara. I’m debuting my first ever show at the fringe this year—I know, very exciting. What is it about I see you ask?? Oh, thank you, thank you so very much for caring. I will so tell you: it’s an hour long stand up comedy show called GRL/LATNX/DEF. It’s called that because those are my three boxes, and the show is mainly me processing what it’s been like to be part of those three minorities, all at the same time.

I’ve been doing stand up for four years, I found myself only writing through those three themes and I kept thinking doing so was a testament to my narrow worldview buuuuuut this year I realized that’s my strength. I’ve got a pretty particular subjective experience so I LEANED IN, BABAY, and I’ve made an hour of jokes about them. I do touch on other subjects too, but everything relates back to the bits of my identity I’ve been juggling with for years. It’s a silly show, it plays with these parts of me that I’m getting acquainted with.

In more concrete terms, some of the things it touches on are: what it means to be a white-passing Latin American person out of her Latin American enclave. I only found out that I was a POC when I was 24, and I’ve been ticking the wrong thing on the census for years. So what does it really mean to be a person of colour if you don’t know that you are? Huh? What does it MEAN?! And why won’t anyone ever answer?!

It’s also about being a girl who doesn’t fully feel like a woman. I feel more like three girls in a trench coat, and if I do anything that’s remotely adult and I remember I’m being an adult while I’m doing it, I’ll immediately come. And it’s not that I wanna come when I’m doing my taxes, but I will.

It touches on my parents’ guilt towards me having a disability, and how it’s fitting—‘cause who’s fault is it going to be? It’s not mine, no sir. The thing is: it's both me AND my sister who have degenerative hearing loss… If it were just one, we could say it was a flaw in the system, but two of us?? I REST my case.

I think one of my favorite things is that it touches on that shitty part inside all of us that hopes someone, somewhere is doing something for the imminent problems we’re all facing. For all of us, the biggest, most blatantly obvious problem is the climate crisis, and we’re all putting off caring about it and hoping someone else is doing the work it takes to mitigate the consequences we’re already living. For me specifically, it’s the climate crisis, but also the fact that it’s pretty likely I’ll completely lose my ability to hear in the future and, yeah, I couuuuld learn sign language, but probably someone is working on some great hearing aids somewhere, right? Someone’s working on it. They’ve got to be. I’ll be fine, we’ll be fine!

So yeah, it’s also a show about the things I’m feeling in relation to my juggling idenTITIES (it’s not about titties, but you must note when they’re there–it’s not the patriarchy if we don’t). I’ve particularly learned that although it’s easier not to be in a minority and to “pass” as white or able bodied or a man (in that it’s always easier to be a straight, white, cis, able-bodied man, cause that’s who the world we currently live in was made for), I still would rather be part of mine #sweet #kind. This show has really made me think about who I am and allowed me to make jokes about those specifics. I think it’s silly that I’ve chosen to tick my boxes when no one really asked me to, but I realized it’s actually better to tick ‘em so than to not. It gives me a sense of direction, and I really need that.

So GRL/LATNX/DEF is a silly look at the boxes which make me, me and I really hope you’ll come and enjoy it. I’ve been working really hard and I love you very much!!

Lara Ricote: GRL/LATNX/DEF runs from Aug 3-28th, 3:20pm, at Monkey Barrel. Tickets here