Bad Parent

The Cultch Historic Theatre until October 23, 2022
Tickets from $29 at 604-251-1363 or www.thecultch.com

Posted October 16, 2022

If ever a play screamed out for audience intervention, Bad Parent is one. And in removing the fourth wall and having the actors, Raugi Yu and Josette Jorge, address the audience directly, playwright Ins Choi leaves the door wide open for us to jump in and holler, “Nooooooo” or “We hear you” or “Hang in there.” But, except for a couple of occasions, we don’t shout out but sit there watching two people who love each other get very mean and nasty with each other – all within earshot of their toddler son.

Charles (Raugi Yu) and Norah (Josette Jorge) weren’t even sure they wanted a baby but when all their friends started having them and their parents were expecting grandchildren, they went ahead and had little baby boy Mountain. Rough pregnancy, breach presentation followed by a C-section, painful breast-feeding – the whole nine yards and a very difficult introduction to parenthood.

In the play, Mountain is now eighteen months old, Charles and Norah are still on parental leave and the novelty – as with a lot of ‘pandemic puppies’ – has worn off. Norah wants to go back to work where she is appreciated, has status and the cleaning up is done by someone else.

Charles doesn’t talk much about going back to work as a songwriter/musician but he tells Norah (and us), “I don’t think he [Mountain] likes me very much.” The truth is, Charles has a lot of growing up to do. His mother still buys his underwear and he loves being waited on hand and foot.

On the other hand, Norah makes some unilateral decisions that ought to have been discussed beforehand: she hires Nora, a Filipina nanny, and she goes back to work. Charles is left home with Mountain and sweet Nora who turns out to be an excellent nanny and a fantastic cook. Uh-oh. And wife Norah gets scads of flirty attention from colleague Dale in the office. Uh-oh. (Why does the playwright give almost the same name to the two women but different names to the two guys? What’s the inference?)

Thankfully, Bad Parent doesn’t go where you fear it might. But it definitely goes sour and we sit through some lengthy fights and suffer through some of Charles’ unhappy childhood memories – including one I think we could do without – before a heartfelt resolution, of sorts, is reached.

All this being said, under the direction of Meg Roe, these are two terrific performances – especially Yu who absolutely defines ‘deadpan’. And when he busts some moves in a fantasy sequence in front of ‘thousands’ of fans, he’s amazing; gyrating and singing, backlit by a bank of blazing lights. It’s a hilarious piece of theatre and he nails it. Charles is alternately slow-witted, sweet, sexist, funny, sad, pathetic and seriously messed-up; Yu takes us through all the qualities make Charles who he is.

Josette Jorge’s Norah is harder to like especially when she delivers her list of complaints to Charles beginning with, “I deserve more than you” – oh, that’s a bad one – and ending with “Grow up.”

Sophie Tang’s set, lit by Gerald King, is IKEA meets playschool – a colourful jumble of toys and stuffies and way more than any little kid could possibly play with.

Bad Parent isn’t Shakespeare and not exactly All’s Well That Ends Well. But it is Ins Choi, famous for writing the hugely popular Kim’s Convenience so it ends sort of well. Presented by The Cultch and the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Bad Parent is entertaining, tremendously well put together by director Roe and performers Yu and Jorge; it’s bound to touch nerves and funny bones of old and new parents alike.