Bad Reviews TO.

The Long Of It

“Growing up, I had a ready answer whenever I was asked about my heritage: ‘I’m Chinese-Canadian.’ Simple. But a few years ago, that confidence wavered as I began coming to terms with how little I actually understood about ‘being Hakka.’”- Kevin Matthew Wong.

I’m ushered in, told where my seat is. I take it and wait a short time, admiring the props on stage. Someone makes a short announcement about the show. The lights dim. I’m at the Tarragon. It’s important you know this– you’ll see why.

The show starts, I hear Kevin, our star in this solo act, before I see him. Banging pot lids, he tells us that no good Chinese event starts without a dragon dance. He invites audience members to assist in his parade; they take the place of his kitchen-instruments. He makes them real tea, brings the porcelain cups to their seats. He gives them red envelopes– small gifts, I expect.

Kevin begins by talking about the importance of hosting, of taking care of your guests. He shares a little about the many receptions he’s received in Canada. With his back turned, I steal a few more glimpses and nosey peeks into our host’s space: a table with a lamp and an old landline phone, a bamboo steamer basket, a rice cooker and spatula, the tea set he just used, a stool, and a fan.

I’m not at the Tarragon anymore. I’m not sure when I left, and I realize how cheesy this sounds, but I’m in Kevin’s home now. I can really feel it, and this is where Benevolence truly begins. The show’s most successful, most intimate moments occur here, wrapping you up in this feeling that you’re sitting across from a friend, a family member, who’s serving you tea in preparation of a story. The transformation is complete and I’m no longer an audience member, but Kevin’s guest. I accept my new role happily.

Kevin produces a fold-up projection screen. He tells us who we’re about to meet, and a home-video of his Grandmother plays. Kevin sits cross-legged on the stage watching the video with us, sometimes joining the audience in the stands, sitting on the stairs beside us. He chuckles and adds his live commentary to the video. “I’m sold,” I think to myself. We’re roughly twenty five minutes into the eighty minute show and I’m already sold. This tender moment, the complete and absolute emotional nakedness with which Kevin shares the innermost views of his life, I’m enthralled, and already I feel as if the purchase price of my ticket has been justified. I’m not even entirely sure Kevin is acting anymore, as the show blurs the lines between production and something much more “real.”

He had a plan, based on the advice of a Hakka elder, to connect with his identity. However, like everyone who’s ever made a plan, Kevin found himself at the junction of self-doubt and existentialism when that plan was derailed. Kevin’s grandmother, a hundred years old, struggles to recall her early life in China, and the details for which he depended on. “Am I too late?” He asks. The moment hangs as a poignant silence over the theatre. Effective in its forceful introspection. 

We’ve left Kevin’s house and landed somewhere in British Columbia. He came first to Vancouver for work, and then, a new plan. He tells us of this Hakka temple, the oldest Chinese temple in Canada. Like everyone who’s ever made a plan, he finds what he’s looking for in the most unexpected way. 

Kevin makes first contact with his inner self and, assisted by surreal, dream-like projections and sound, dances. Flanked on each side by a silhouette projection of his body we see pieces of Kevin’s self fractured, before a final, third silhouette rises from the incense, haze and water. Kevin lunges at it, trying to join himself to it, clawing, literally, at the long fabric canvas that serves as his projection screen. The theatre goes dark, we’re left, for a moment, on our own, with the ambiguity of whether or not Kevin found what he was looking for, whether he succeeded in joining each piece of his identity into one whole. The imagery is powerful, and among the most evocative moments of the show.

As the end draws near, Kevin too has transformed. Draped in the drawn out white fabric that was once a long projection screen, decorated with colored dangles, he performs one final dance: a more complex version of the dragon dance we began with, a more sophisticated, polished version. A story capstone– a finale, to celebrate all of the changes we’ve witnessed in Kevin today. He too acknowledges these changes by thanking us for our attention, and finally, noting that now, where once we were his guests, he is now the guest in our lives, in our stories, our memories.

Benevolence is a wonderful journey of identity and seeking with moments of gut-punching introspection and hand-crafted invitation into a life laid bare. I’m thankful to have witnessed it as Kevin’s guest.