Banana Boys is showing its years on some social customs – you can’t smoke indoors any more – but it remains the stuff of legend for cast member Simu Liu, centre. ‘It seems more relevant now,’ he says.Joseph Michael
At a recent rehearsal for Banana Boys, a touchstone Canadian play about five young Asian men torn between cultures and identities, artistic director Nina Lee Aquino lets the new cast know the script needs some updates.
"You can't be smoking indoors," she tells them as they remount the classic play at Factory Theatre. It's a change from when she directed the original production in 2004, but the fundamental plot remains relevant and unchanged – a sign that portrayals of Asian identity in popular culture today still have a way to go.
In the years since it was first staged, we now have the U.S. network sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, a critical success for its portrayal of a relatable Asian-American family. In 2013, Kevin Kwan's debut novel Crazy Rich Asians was that summer's guilty-pleasure read and is now on track for a movie makeover. In Canada, the first original Asian crime drama, Blood and Water, began airing on Omni Television last Sunday. Set in Vancouver, the eight-part series is filmed in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.
Yet, there's a constant sense of caution. When Hollywood came calling, Mr. Kwan has talked about how initial interest in his book had involved changing the main female lead from Chinese to Caucasian. ABC may have renewed Fresh Off the Boat, but it cancelled Selfie, starring Karen Gillan and South Korean actor John Cho in a modern Pygmalion plot, after six episodes. It was the only network sitcom with an Asian romantic lead in an interracial relationship with chemistry.
It's against this larger backdrop that you have to appreciate why Banana Boys is included in Factory Theatre's 2015-16 Naked Season as it examines, according to Ms. Aquino, "what these works mean to us now, and ultimately ask: What makes a classic, classic?"
Banana Boys has been criticized as nonlinear and hard to understand. But that doesn't bother Ms. Aquino. Taking a break from rehearsal, she said she wanted a white audience to be just as uncomfortable watching Banana Boys as modern audiences often are watching Shakespeare.
"It is not a museum piece, where we show people what it means to be Asian. It's about letting them in," she said.
Based on Terry Woo's 2000 novel, the play was adapted by Leon Aureus and starred David Yee and Ins Choi among others in 2004. It was the first full-scale production by fu-GEN, then a newly formed Asian-Canadian theatre company, and launched the careers of many of the cast and crew. Mr. Yee recently won a Governor-General's Literary Award for carried away on the crest of a wave, a play centred on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, while Mr. Choi's hit play Kim's Convenience becomes a CBC TV series next year.
The novel was a result of his "racist experiences," such as getting beaten up regularly, while growing up in Sarnia, said Mr. Woo, who now lives in Toronto. While studying engineering at the University of Waterloo, and thoroughly frustrated for following the pragmatic advice of his parents, he started writing the novel on the side.
He'd always been interested in writing, but hadn't found anything that spoke to him as an Asian-Canadian male. "There was Joy Luck Club. But the men in it were abusive or distant. I thought it wasn't fair. I definitely had a mission back in the nineties, that we've got stories to tell, too."
While Banana Boys was a leap into the unknown 11 years ago for Mr. Aureus and Ms. Aquino, the play is the stuff of legend for current cast member Simu Liu. He's been acting only since 2012 after getting laid off as an accountant for Deloitte, then taking a chance on a Craigslist ad for extras on the locally shot Guillermo del Toro film Pacific Rim. That led to other gigs, including a lead role in Blood and Water.
"Banana Boys may have been written so long ago, but it seems more relevant now," Mr. Liu said. The scene for Asian-Canadian actors is better today, he added. But there's a simmering anger in his voice when he talks about persistent problems. "I still turn on the TV and find Asians represented as desexualized, penis-less guys, like that character on Two Broke Girls. I don't know how he sleeps at night. … We don't have enough writers of colour behind the scenes."
Fu-GEN has done its part to challenge stereotypes, said Mr. Yee, the current artistic director. Take for example Sex Tape Project, a fu-GEN production that opens this weekend and runs until Dec. 6 at the Centre for Social Innovation Spadina. The site-specific, experimental theatre piece by Mr. Yee, Adrienne Wong and Donald Woo explores a sexual encounter between two individuals. The action takes place in a room across the street, and the audience will watch it unfold while wearing headphones.
"The more they [fu-GEN] pursue the things that fascinate them, the more we broaden the definition of what Asian-Canadian art is," Mr. Yee said. There's no active agenda to create stereotypes; yet the system is set up in a way that doesn't challenge them either, he added. "Are we just being used as tools to advance a majority culture's narrative? It's really important not to lose sight of that," he said.
Mr. Woo did write a second book after Banana Boys, but it was so dark that he is glad it never saw the light of day. After time in journalism school and a stint with the Army Reserve, he now works as a technical writer for a software company specializing in health and wellness products. While he may write something about his four years in the service, Mr. Woo says he's done dwelling on the double standards. He'll leave that to young actors, such as Mr. Liu.
"In my 20s, I had something to say, so I wrote Banana Boys. Now in my 40s, I really can't be angry any more," he said. "I have a life to live. I've got bills to pay."
Banana Boys runs at Factory Theatre until Nov. 22