Fil-Am playwright’s solo show on celebrity mom, ‘Miss Tapia’

Filipino American playwright Lani Montreal (right) and her mother Mely Tagasa, known as Miss Tapia in the Philippines. CONTRIBUTED

CHICAGO — Filipino American playwright Lani Montreal will be performing a solo show on what it’s like growing up having a famous mother and leaving it all behind to move to the United States to strike it on her own.

Titled “Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother,” the one-person play is a rumination on her experiences growing up with a mother who was a television celebrity in the Philippines and her own journey “from the Philippines to North America, from the closet to the dyke march, and from daughter to mother.”

Now based in Chicago, Montreal writes plays while teaching composition and creative writing at Malcolm X College. Her works have been staged by Filipino American theater group Circa Pintig.

Montreal’s mother, Mely Tagasa, is known to generations of Filipinos from the 1970s to the 1980s as the character Miss Tapia on the sitcoms “Baltic & Co” and “Iskul Bukol.”  The play will provide audiences a more intimate look at Tagasa and Montreal’s complex and nuanced relationship with her.

Uncovering truths

“The play is divided into two parts,” says Montreal. “The first part highlights my mother’s journey from being a prolific writer of soaps on the radio and television to being a character actor whose role as Miss Tapia brought much fame and accolades.”

Montreal then goes on to share her attempts “to uncover truths to help me understand her.”

She says that although Tagasa was beloved by fans, co-actors and family, her own relationship with her mother was strained.

Montreal reveals that when she was growing up, “I could not understand why she was always so angry. It took little to upset her, or why she was always trying to find religion.”

Processing grief

Montreal says that this project is also her “attempt at processing grief and gaining closure through performance.”

“In March 2018, she had a stroke and went into a coma for 14 days. I flew back home, and stayed by her side through what would become the longest block of time I had ever spent with my mother since I became an adult.

“There were so many unmet expectations and so much left unsaid between us. It was like we were holding back for fear of disappointing each other over and over again.

“I thought about what it would have been like to have had an honest conversation with her. While I cannot bring her back physically, I can always imagine it.”

Self-discovery

Montreal developed the play during a six-month fellowship residency with nonprofit creative lab Links Hall.

“The second part chronicles my own journey of self-discovery. Finding out who I am when I’m not trying to live up to her expectations.

Lani Montreal’s show, “Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother,” talks about her relationship with her mother. CONTRIBUTED

“Leaving home allowed me to get to know myself better and come to terms with my queer identity.”

Montreal says she tries to balance the show’s heavy parts with “a lot of” comedic moments. “I intersperse storytelling with music, video projections and movement. I sing, too.”

She will incorporate ephemera into the show. “I have old video footages of my mom, old letters, pictures, as well as poetry to help me tell our stories.”

The performance also serves as a tribute to her mother. “The show has live guitar music and sound effects. My mother was a voice actor for the radio so I wanted the sound effects to be live. My mother also used to sing kundimans (torch songs), so I sing them onstage [as part of the show] as a way to transition from one scene to another.

“Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother” runs June 22-23 during the Links Hall Co-Mission Festival of New Works at 3111 N. Western Ave., Chicago, Illinois.

Walter Ang is the author of Barangay to Broadway: Filipino American Theater. Available at Amazon, Bookshop and other online booksellers.