Bad Parent's child-rearing story hits close to home for actors Raugi Yu and Josette Jorge
Ins Choi’s latest play looks at new parents’ struggle for identity—and the urge to judge themselves
Bad Parent’s Josette Jorge and Raugi Yu. Photo by Dahlia Katz
Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre presents Bad Parent at the Cultch Historic Theatre from October 13 to 23, in a co-production with Prairie Theatre Exchange and Soulpepper Theatre Company
“BAD PARENT”: IT’S a label that anyone who’s raising children is as likely to give themselves as others.
Just ask Josette Jorge and Raugi Yu, the two stars in Ins Choi’s brutally honest new comedy, Bad Parent. In it, the celebrated playwright behind Kim’s Convenience explores the way having children permanently alters our identity, our relationships, and the way we judge ourselves.
“I just had a baby, and I’m in the middle of those sleepless nights,” Jorge says in a joint call with Yu before rehearsals of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre premiere at The Cultch. “Having a toddler, too, I definitely have those moments: ‘Okay, I'm putting on Paw Patrol now. I’m a bad parent!’”
“My kids are 15 and 17, and what makes me feel like a bad parent now is if I’m not taking the time to listen to their concerns now,” Yu shares. “We've taught them how to communicate…and I definitely feel like a ‘bad parent’ sometimes, but in a different way now.”
As anyone who’s ever had to quell a five-alarm mall tantrum or used Smarties to bribe a kid to get into their stroller knows, self-criticism is often compounded by the subtle critiques being offered up by complete strangers on an almost daily basis.
“That judgment is out there, at the playground, at the drop-in centre, at the daycare, in a look or in a word,” Yu reflects. “It’s hard enough just keeping a child alive—just trying to feed it the right food.”
The pair, who are close friends in real life, say their own experiences as parents have become integral to their performances in Choi’s new play. Yu says the script, under the direction of Meg Roe, pushes its actors to go to all-too-real places.
As Yu puts it: “Unlike maybe most other plays, we’re really walking that line of who we are actually as parents and being as open as we can in front of a large group of strangers every night.”
Jorge laughs that in her case that may mean staying up all night with a baby and then stepping onstage to play a frazzled new mother going exactly through the same thing.
In the play, their Norah and Charles are trying to navigate their lives as parents of a toddler but are still trying to figure out who they are in relation to their son, to each other—and to the audience. Choi has said he drew directly from the tensions that arose between himself and his wife after they had a baby.
“My character has been on mat leave and deciding what her identity will be when she goes back to work and what her identity is to Raugi’s character,” Jorge explains. “A lot of the exploration is between these two people who maybe had their lives defined before. There’s more stress, less sleep, and more responsibility.
“Especially right now, what’s speaking to me is the lack of time to do things—the time you put into your kids,” she adds.
Much like Kim’s Convenience, Bad Parent wrestles with serious issues through laughter, the pair says, but has deeply moving moments that sneak up on the audience—and on the actors themselves.
“That’s Ins’s wizardry: you laugh at a couple jokes and you think you’re going one way, and then all of a sudden everyone’s in the shit and we’re crying and really angry,” Yu says. “I never know when the script is just going to devastate me. I don’t have to work so hard to create those moments; it’s more like, ‘What’s happening to my face?’”
Jorge stresses that there’s love and hope behind the conflict and outbursts. Seeing the play may not lead anyone to stop calling themselves a “bad parent” anymore. But at least they’ll know they aren’t alone.
As she puts it: “In a way, it’s bringing people together to say, ‘Oh, I do that too, and maybe I can be kinder to myself.’” Even when sleep is not an option.
This story has been reposted after Bad Parent was postponed in April 2022 due to illness.
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