A story of survival, familial love and resilience
Woking Phoenix
(out of 4)
By the Silk Bath Collective, directed by the Silk Bath Collective and Hanna Kiel. Until Saturday at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave. passemuraille.ca or 416-504-7529
Every storefront has a story. For Woking Phoenix, the immigrantrun Chinese restaurant in the play of the same name, that story is a decades-long journey of survival, familial love and resilience.
It’s rendered with gentle restraint in this world premiere production at Theatre Passe Muraille. Written by the Silk Bath Collective — composed of Aaron Jan, Bessie Cheng and Gloria Mok — “Woking Phoenix” is subtle at every turn, perhaps to a fault. But its ensemble of four actors imbues this sweeping tale with such heart that it’s impossible not to be moved by it all. And it features some of the most compelling direction you might find on a Toronto stage this season.
At the centre is Phoebe Hu’s matriarch, simply referred to as “Ma,” a Chinese immigrant to Canada who, in the late 1990s, establishes a restaurant in a small Ontario town. She comes to Canada with her husband, but is later abandoned by him and left to care for the business and her three children herself.
Hu captures the complexity of her character with stunning sincerity. There’s a sense of underlying loneliness to Hu’s Ma — her life in Canada is marked by sacrifices for her kids — yet she carries herself in front of her children with unwavering optimism and hope.
Her three children could not be more different. Eldest daughter Charlie (Cheng, beautifully capturing her character’s journey) is an aspiring artist who feels trapped in a small-town life, trying to fit in though continually shut out. Vince (a puckish Richard Lam), the middle child and only son, tries to become the man of the house but then, like his father, abandons his family as he attempts to carve out a career as a musician. It’s only the youngest daughter Iris, played by Madelaine Hodges, who takes an interest in running the restaurant and in whom Ma finds a willing business partner.
“Woking Phoenix” is not a play built on narrative punches or inciting incidents. The story is about this family’s journey itself. And it’s when I stopped searching for a single narrative that I was able to revel in the play’s poetry.
Key to that poetic esthetic is the direction, by the Silk Bath Collective and Hanna Kiel. Always engaging yet never too busy, their staging makes full use of Julia Kim’s set, which evokes the interior of the family’s humble establishment.
At its best, “Woking Phoenix” finds beauty in the mundane. A scene featuring Ma cutting Charlie’s hair is quiet, almost fleeting, yet does so much in establishing the relationship between both characters. Much of the play operates on that level, forgoing dense dialogue for moments grounded in silence, largely filled by Kiel’s choreography, used especially well to show the passage of time.
The intimate staging almost counters the play’s narrative sprawl. Running nearly two-and-ahalf hours with an intermission, “Woking Phoenix” covers much ground. Its initial scenes move at an almost breakneck speed (and could benefit from some slower pacing), while its second half feels torn by competing storylines, as characters split on various paths.
Some of those narratives, particularly those concerning the children, never resolve. But there’s something also truthful about these dangling threads. After all, the chapters of our lives never unfold as planned, leaving instead wistful notes of “could-haves” and “should-haves.”
By the end, you almost feel part of the family in “Woking Phoenix,” as if walking in lockstep with them, encountering every hurdle and triumph. Even if that journey is long, it ultimately proves well worth it.