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Calgary Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
2025 Bard on the Beach opens with Shakespeare's first play, and a set of rom coms
Article content Vancouver actor Agnes Tong is new to Bard on the Beach this year. She plays Silvia, beloved of Valentine, one of the two gents from Verona. With a lengthy Hollywood North TV and film resume, the Studio 58 graduate fondly recalls attending Bard on the Beach in the past. Article content Article content 'It's an event with beautiful language floating over to the mountains you see through the open back of the stage,' said Tong of the famous seaside setting. Article content Noting she's still somewhat new to Shakespeare, having previously been directed in Julius Caesar at Studio 58 by current cast mate Scott Bellis, Tong says it has been a complete delight diving into the work. Article content 'It looks hard, but the iambic pentameter rhythm of the writing mirrors a natural speaking rhythm that makes learning the language of the Bard easier,' she said. 'But, yes, there are still some words that are hard to get your mouth around and ensure the image and emotion in what you are saying resonates. We are having the best time with the big hair, bigger shoulder pads and drawing on my previous career as a dancer.' Article content Article content Article content Tong plays opposite Matthew Ip Shaw as Valentine. Jacob Leonard appears as Proteus, Valentine's best mate and the other gent of Verona, who is in love with Julia (Tess Gegenstein). The love story between this foursome follows them on an adventure that spans several royal courts, locations, and encounters. Article content By end of show, the audience will be able to know the answer to the question posed by the Human League in its 1981 smash, Don't You Want Me? Article content Article content Much Ado About Nothing: A romp that is 'as merry as the day is long.' Featuring sparring couple Beatrice and Benedick and star-crossed young lovers Claudio and Hero, this is one of Shakespeares most-loved comedies directed by Johnna Wright. With Sheldon Elter as Benedick, Jennifer Lines as Beatrice, Angus Yam as Claudio and Jennifer Tong as Hero. Article content The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Venture back to the weird and wacky era of the 1980s for a music-filled frenzy of rom-com mix-ups and eventual matches in what is considered Shakespeare's first play. Directed by Dean Paul Gibson. With Agnes Tong as Silvia, Tess Degenstein as Julia, Matthew Ip Shaw as Valentine and Jacob Leonard as Proteus. Plus Mason the dog as Crab, the dog. Article content Douglas Campbell Theatre: Article content The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] [Again]: A sprint through all of the Shakespearean canonical plays in record time with no shortage of laugh out loud moments. A fan fave whether you love or loathe the Bard. Directed by Mark Chavez. With Tess Degenstein, Craig Erickson, Arghavan Jenati and Nathan Kay in many, many roles. Article content The Dark Lady: Playwright and actor Jessica B. Hill's story of England's first published female poet, Emilia Bassano, asks if she was the 'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets and more. Directed by Moya O'Connell. With Arghavan Jenati as Emilai Bassano, Nathan Kay as William Shakespeare, Sebastian Kroon and Synthia Yusuf as understudies.
CBC
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. is a tribute to badass Filipino grandmothers
Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. follows Lola Basyang, a tough 90-year-old Filipino woman with dementia who escapes from her care home. As her two grandchildren set out to find her, they come across her unfinished memoir, which details her childhood in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. When Padilla talked to her grandmothers for inspiration while writing the play, she uncovered stories from their past, which not only taught her about her family, but also encouraged her to learn more about her native country. "Both of them actually opened up to me and let me know that they were children during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines," Padilla said. "When I wanted to ask more about their experiences, both of their reactions was more leaning towards, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about it,' you know? So I felt like, 'Oh, this is probably, like, a sensitive topic for them.' But also, because I was so intrigued … this actually urged me to do my research [on] the Japanese occupation." Padilla grew up in the Philippines and studied dentistry. When she moved to Vancouver at 23 and had to rebuild her life from scratch, she decided to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an actress and writer. She worked as an assistant to a film producer and acted in a few community theatre productions. She started to take playwriting seriously when she enrolled in Langara College's theatre training program, Studio 58. It was there that Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. started to take shape as a 15-minute solo project. She wanted to challenge herself by including skills outside of her usual practice, like rapping and fight choreography and playing a sassy old woman — a role she couldn't see herself being cast in otherwise. As Padilla dug into the history of the Philippines during the Second World War, she was fascinated by the guerrilla resistance movement of the 1940s and the stories of "comfort women" — who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese military forces — and incorporated these topics into the play. "The part about their stories that also resonated with me is the fact that a lot of them are still waiting for the justice that they feel is never going to come," she said. "And at this point, if there's only about 40 comfort women that are left in the Philippines, I just don't really want their stories to die as well and be forgotten." Although the stories are tragic, Padilla was drawn to the resilience of these women. For her, this is where the gang element of the story comes into play, since she associates it with being tough and "doing your best to survive." In spite of that heavy historical context, Padilla intentionally made the play a comedy. She loves The Golden Girls and Kung Fu Hustle — anything that features tough, determined women who can thrive in any situation. She says racialized artists are often associated with work that draws on trauma, so she wanted to find balance and allow her characters to be seen for more than just the tragic events they've lived through. "We should not be reducing people to the horrible experiences because we are so much more than that," Padilla said. "We are people who are multi-faceted. We are people who laugh at random gossip.… We are people who are daughters, who are mothers, who get annoyed by our siblings.… "It's kind of sad when people, again, just really put people in boxes as, like, 'Oh, you're a comfort woman. You were the girl who experienced this or you were the girl who experienced that.' But we are so much more than that." She also credits her time in the Kathara Society Filipino Indigenous dance ensemble with sparking her interest in the colonial history of the Philippines. The troupe collaborated with Butterflies in Spirit, Indigenous performers raising awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. "What I love about [Kathara] is that they were the ones who essentially taught me a little bit about te colonial history of Canada," Padilla said. "Sometimes we need to move to a different place in order for us to be able to … really look back objectively on our history as a Filipino people. So, yeah, I think that was a big influence on my part." Padilla says when you get down to it, the play is about family and finding the balance between honouring the sacrifices your ancestors made to get you here and living your own life. "It's about … being able to put that healthy boundary of like, 'You know what? I'm going to honour my ancestors by living bigger and happier lives than the lives that they have experienced,'" she said.
