Needless to say, Ins Choi’s new play Bad Parent, which opened last week at Soulpepper, has been keenly anticipated.
Choi brought Kim’s Convenience to the Soulpepper stage ten years ago . . . and the rest is history. The hit play, acclaimed for capturing the Korean-Canadian experience with humour and heart, spawned a CBC television show that became a worldwide hit over its 5-season run from 2016 to 2021.
Choi’s new play, directed smartly by Meg Roe, is more intimate.
It features just two actors, Josette Jorge and Raugi Yu, playing couple Norah and Charles.
Exhausted new parents, they are floundering and frustrated. They feel like frauds because they really don’t know what they’re doing. And their relationship is teetering because of the Mountain between them (Mountain is the not-so-subtle name of their son.)
In the program’s Playwright Note, Choi discusses his wife and children, and explains that “This play began when I started writing a bunch of thoughts down in order to try and clarify to myself why our marriage was so difficult after having a baby.”
The on-stage manifestation of those thoughts and experiences really resonates. Bad Parent’s greatest strength is its relatability for anyone who has ever become a new co-parent.
I found myself nodding my head and laughing ruefully throughout. At the incredulity of being sent home – impossibly quickly, it seems – from the hospital. At the IKEA furniture assembly woes which are a parental rite of passage. At the perpetual fatigue and the perpetual mess.
And also at the pervasive self-doubt. The inchoate desire to escape the prison of definition-by-relationship that is “parent”. And the questioning of a partner’s commitment and capability: are they pulling their weight? Is the way they are parenting helping . . . or hurting the child?
Yes, that’s right: woven around the core of humorous relatability is spiky material that makes the Bad Parent experience a little tougher to digest.
It’s a funny show. It’s also claustrophobic because it’s unrelenting in centering Norah and Charles’ relationship. The two actors are the only ones to appear on stage: sometimes separately, sometimes together, and usually bickering. Even Mountain the child is less a separate character than an off-stage force of nature whose crying or cooing disrupts the couple’s relationship by triggering conflict and prompting sudden exits and entrances.
Yu is a laconic, low-key and likeable Charles. Jorge’s Norah is animated, intense and interesting. The actors form an appealing duo of opposites who at one time attracted – though over the course of the show, their omnipresence and constant talk start to become enervating (which is a perfect reflection of how the characters they play find their constricted world of child-rearing).
And the two actors not only play the titular bad parents. They also play the only two people in whom the bad parents can confide. For Norah, who flees back to work as soon as she can arrange care for Mountain, the confidant is work husband Dale, played by Yu. For Charles, who is a homebound would-be musician with a spottier employment history, the confidant is the couple’s nanny Nora (without an h), played by Jorge.
The double casting makes perfect sense, as we realize that the couple are not really escaping their spouses. Each has needs that their spouse is not currently fulfilling, and they are projecting those needs onto Dale and Nora. They are reflections, not replacements.
As an audience, we don’t just have a front-row seat to the claustrophobic action in this family hothouse: we’re a part of it. After all, to new parents, parenting feels like a performative and public act. You’re doing your best . . . but it feels like the rest of the world is watching and judging you. .. harshly. Thus, at various moments, Norah or Charles the performing parent will break the fourth wall to plead their case directly, hoping to get us on their side – and away from their spouse’s.
This is funny stuff – but again, there’s an edge. Some of the dialogue is naturalistic, authentic and easy. Other moments are more shaped and stylized. As an audience, we don’t quite know how to take these shifts . . . or what to do when Norah and Charles call upon us directly. Should we respond by shouting out, panto-style? Or stay quiet because maybe they don’t really want our input?
Ultimately, Bad Parent delivers equal parts laughter and discomfort, on the way to exploring some dark questions and places. (Darkest of all being the existential marriage question: do Norah and Charles still love each other, and should they stay together?)
How to take it and what to make of the play is the real question, though. Because Bad Parent doesn’t deliver unalloyed fun. It delivers big laughs but demands effort.
Just like parenting.
Reserve tickets to Bad Parent on soulpepper.ca.
© Scott Sneddon, SesayArts Magazine, 2022
