Fil-Canadian playwright joins Montreal Fringe

A scene for Riley Palanca’s “Would Virginia Woolf Contemplate Suicide If She Were Filipino?” CONTRIBUTED

MONTREAL — Filipino Canadian playwright Riley Palanca will premiere his play “Would Virginia Woolf Contemplate Suicide If She Were Filipino?” at this year’s St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival.

Written under the pen name Revan Badingham III, the one-act play is about Filipino Canadians Lemar, a new immigrant to the country, and Warren, a child of rich immigrants, who decide to meet in person after matching with each other on an app. Games lead to uncovering of differences and revelations of similarities. Will they or won’t they?

The production boasts a Filipino Canadian cast and director. Roy Vhinson plays Lemar. Credits include “The Laramie Project,” “Dr. Faustus” and “Peter and the Starcatcher.” Marc Ducusin takes on the role of Warren. Credits include performances for In The Wing Promotions, Kaleidoscope Theatre, Acts to Grind, Brave New Productions, Full Circle Productions, the Cote-Saint-Luc Dramatic Society, and the McGill Savoy Society, for which he also served as a producer.

Director Dennis Gupa is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Theatre and Film University of Winnipeg. Gupa completed his doctorate in Applied Theatre at the University of Victoria as a Vanier scholar. In addition to Canada, he has directed productions in the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Riley Palanca has been writing and staging plays with gay characters or themes for over a decade. CONTRIBUTED

“Riley’s play is a meditation of the circuitous net of cultural translations, linguistic gaps, and class differences revealed from the fluid and malleable sensual intimacies shared by queer people of color in Montreal. To my knowledge, this is the first English play written by a Filipino-Canadian about the immigrant and migrant lifeworld of Filipino queer folks,” says Gupa.

Fortunate

Palanca, who is gender non-conforming and uses they/them pronouns, is joining the fringe festival as part of the Culturally Diverse Artist Program.

“It’s a special lottery for the festival that is open to companies led by artists who identify as diverse, i.e. people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ, etc.,” says Palanca.  “I was very fortunate to have been the winner in 2020 when it was first launched.”

Part of the winnings covers Palanca’s venue fees and provides them with a bursary, rehearsal space and a mentor.

Palanca has been writing and staging plays with gay characters or themes for over a decade. Recent playwriting credits include “Puta Kang Hayop Ka” for Relive Your Passion PH, “Sa Dakong Kawala: Mga Eksenang Binaon ng Alon” for Tales from the Flipside, “Art, Business, Coffee” and “Desaparacidos,” both for Tuesday Night Café Theatre. He also published a novel under their Badingham pen name in 2020, “To The Boys Who Wear Pink.”

The St. Ambroise Montréal Fringe Festival is a “summer block party of theater, dance, music, comedy, circus and more.” With over 800 performances, local and international artists take over the Plateau-Mont-Royal to celebrate boundless creativity. More than 500 artists perform in more than 20 venues.

“Would Virginia Woolf Contemplate on Suicide if She Were Filipino?” runs June 9 to 19 at Le Théatre La Comédie de Montréal, 1113 Boul. de Maisonneuve E, Montréal, Quebec. Visit Fb.com/VirginiaWoolfMontreal.