Jeff Ho
Factory Theatre, in association with b current performing arts, is proud to present the world premiere of trace, a one-man-two-piano-play written, composed and performed by former Factory Artistic Associate Jeff Ho (Ophelia, Prince Hamlet/Why Not Theatre), and directed by Factory Artistic Director Nina LeeAquino.
A painfully personal story of family and genealogy, trace follows the footprints taken by Jeff’s great grandmother who fled the Japanese in WWII by escaping to Hong Kong, losing one of her two sons during the trek; his mother’s similar pilgrimage to Canada, also with two sons in tow; and by Jeff himself, when he too embarked on a journey, moving from Markham to Montreal to pursue an uncharacteristically Chinese life.
Spanning 100 years and three generations, and featuring virtuosic original piano compositions composed by Jeff, traceis a chamber play structured as a piano sonata with a prelude, three movements and a coda. A convergence of theatrical and symphonic storytelling, trace celebrates the courage and strength of his matriarchal forebears while acknowledging the lasting implications of familial sacrifice.
trace marks the playwriting debut from Jeff Ho, referred to as a “discreet revelation” by the Montreal Gazette. Select acting credits include: Hana’s Suitcase (Tour: Toronto/Montreal/Seattle/YPT), Unknown Soldier (lemontree/Architect Theatre), Murderers Confess at Christmastime (Outside the March), Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet (Repercussion Theatre), Incorporated (SyFy/CBS), and Orphan Black (BBC America). As a playwright, Jeff has held residencies with the Stratford Playwright’s Retreat 2016, Nightswimming, Cahoots Hot House Unit, Banff Centre Playwrights Lab, and Factory Theatre. Jeff began playing piano at age five, graduated from the National Theatre School in 2013, and won a Harold award in 2017.
Twitter: @kjeffho
Factory Theatre:
https://www.factorytheatre.ca/2017-18-season/trace/
Twitter: @factorytoronto
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FactoryTheatreTO/
Stageworthy:
http://www.stageworthypodcast.com
Twitter @stageworthyPod
Facebook: http://facebook.com/stageworthyPod
Transcript
[Jeff Ho]
Welcome to episode 102 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast featuring conversations with Canadian theatre makers.
If you like what you hear, I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to draw me a line, you can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at StageworthyPod, and you can find the website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you’re looking for me, you can find me on all the usual platforms at philrickaby.
My guest this week is Jeff Ho. Jeff opens Trace, directed by Factory Theatre Artistic Director Nina Leacchino, starting November 16th and running until December 3rd at the Factory Theatre in Toronto. Are you doing a dress tonight or are you…
Tech dress tonight. Tech dress. Dress rehearsal tomorrow.
[Phil Rickaby]
Sure.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah, same thing. The line at a certain point gets so blurred that…
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but we’re at that phase now where we’re running and running and running, so that’s great. It feels like, you know…
[Jeff Ho]
Kind of what you need at a certain point, right?
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly. We’re just trying to get everything seamless. We just had our first, you know, tech run yesterday.
Our cue-to-cue was the first time we got it all done in one day. I mean, it’s also a short show, so it was great to just…
[Jeff Ho]
When you did the cue-to-cue, did you get a run in?
[Phil Rickaby]
No. No? We got the cue-to-cue all within one day, and then the next day we just got a run in and notes ready.
We get to work on bits and then a run after this. Nice.
[Jeff Ho]
Nice. So the show is Trace. Can you tell me what is Trace about?
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. Trace is about three generations of women in my family. It’s about various memories, mysteries, and myths that have sort of trickled down from these women down to me, and it’s really, truly a tracing of how I am how I am today.
[Jeff Ho]
Okay.
[Phil Rickaby]
How did I come to be this way, and also what is said or unspoken of in my own family that I wish to speak about.
[Jeff Ho]
Are there a lot of things that are unspoken?
[Phil Rickaby]
One particular one. That was sort of the impetus for Trace. My great-grandmother had two sons, and during World War II, she was from China.
She had to flee to Hong Kong when the Japanese invaded, and she had two sons. Along the way, her youngest son disappeared. Shame and sort of familial guilt and all of that, it’s a really thorny subject in Chinese culture.
So great-grandma never spoke of her son again, but we only heard about him in whispers and other relatives being like, so what happened? And great-grandma just always refused to speak about it, up until her deathbed being like, where is my son? And so this has just been a mystery the whole time.
We don’t even know his name. Wow. Yeah, but we know she had another son, and just sort of…
[Jeff Ho]
And you don’t know what happened, you just… We didn’t know. Because she even at the end never spoke about it.
[Phil Rickaby]
We all have our own rumors. My mother has her own rumor, my grandma has her own guesses, but there certainly was something about the Japanese. There was certainly something about fleeing, and in that movement, something happened.
Whether it was… And in my own research, the initial pieces of writing for Trace was a little more about the wartime, really about Japanese invasion, and sort of this unspoken Chinese holocaust, basically, that happened. They set up internment camps called Unit 731, where they performed human experimentation on children.
They infected rats with plague and set them free in villages and stuff like that. But we don’t hear of it, and it’s actually erased in a lot, most and all Japanese textbooks.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah, it is a thing that we… We talk a lot about the German holocaust, and not a whole lot about what happened in Asia at the time.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. A lot of that was to do with when the war was over. A lot of the Americans and a lot of the Japanese scientists that were part of these experiments, they got amnesty in exchange for their test results.
The cure for gangrene came out of that, for example. Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
It’s interesting, because this is not the first time the topic of the Japanese invasion of China has come up. I was talking with Diana Tso in the past, and that’s a big thing for her. And it’s interesting.
I sometimes… As you talk about it, I wonder if there is… The fact that it’s not talked about, there’s a bit of a racist aspect of it.
Because we talk about the Jewish holocaust, because they’re essentially white. They’re an acceptable race. And just after the war, to be from Asia was not quite acceptable.
No.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Racist. Yeah.
I don’t know if racist, but I certainly see it as who were the victors and who were the voices that ended up surviving. Sure. And it’s also cultural.
China simply has this culture of what is dark, we’ve just swept under the rug. We will not talk about it. And we will simply rise and prove ourselves in the future.
Hence, China’s reaction now. Many of their big grandiose statements and political gestures. It’s been less than 100 years.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. And it’s not just family that does this. As a nation, that’s the Chinese…
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
And that’s a generalization.
[Jeff Ho]
Of course.
[Phil Rickaby]
But yeah, certainly. There’s a culture of Zen Buddhism, the philosophy of Confucius and everything. There’s so much about going with the flow.
And if something’s just bad, you don’t talk about it. You just don’t talk about it. And move on and you live and you survive.
Survival is at the core of the culture, especially with the internal wars, the civil wars that happened leading up to World War II or coming out of World War II. It’s just all still so fresh.
[Jeff Ho]
So how old were you when you started working on this? I was 20, 21. Yeah.
Had it been something that had been playing on your mind before then? Or did you just one day sort of say, this is going to be the topic of my new show?
[Phil Rickaby]
No, it was something that had been sort of permeating through just all of my life. It was always used sort of as a guilt tactic by my mother. Like, okay, you think I don’t appreciate you?
Your great grandma had a second son and she went away. You want me to disappear you like that too? So it was a familial guilt tactic.
But that always stuck with me. It was like, oh, that happened. And then similarly, sort of with my mother, I ran away from home at a young age to pursue theatre.
I ran away to Montreal, did university first or two years of university and then went to NTS. And all of this was without the consent of my family. And so in some ways, and I’m not equivocating myself with my disappearance with that son’s disappearance, but there’s always a void that’s left when a child’s gone.
And so I just became sort of obsessed with the idea of how do I reappear in the face of all the fire that’s happened in the family? Does it mean that part of the tracing is my own mother took my brother and I, single mom again, from Hong Kong to Canada to give us the better life. And then I fucking fucked up.
[Jeff Ho]
No, it’s a podcast. You can swear.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s good.
[Jeff Ho]
We don’t have to worry about that. So this is as good a time as any because I usually like to talk to people about why theatre. So for you, what drew you to theatre and what made you run away from home to join the theatre?
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh gosh. It’s my mother’s fault. I mean, I started classical piano.
That was my first artistic expression. And I started piano at five and I was put into it for the discipline, for the hard work. And there’s a huge sort of rumor and more and more science is proving it, but that classical music is actually very related to math.
And so my mother thought, this is a great idea for him to do. And when I first came to Canada and I was still learning English, working on those skillsets, I was just stuck with a piano the whole time. I got kind of socially shy.
And so my mother thought it was a good idea to let me try for an arts program in a high school, Unionville High School’s Arts York program. And I did. I had never really done drama up to that point.
I got in somehow. And so then I spent four years of high school doing theatre. And we all have one of those brilliant teachers that really is this shining light, this sort of doorway that’s like, yeah, you can do it.
Mr. Beeman, he totally just gave me all the resources I needed. I was obsessed with acting theory. I read all the books on theatre at our local library, Unionville Library.
And he just pushed me and pushed me and pushed me and gave me the space to learn in a high school setting. And so I was so privileged that way.
[Jeff Ho]
It’s so rare in a high school setting to be encouraged that way.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. And so if not for this art school and my mom thought, oh yeah, this will be a great way for him to prepare him to be a lawyer so that he can speak better. But then I fell in love with it.
I fell in love when we started working on a Greek tragedy, on comedies, all of that, just like sort of dipping my toes in. And then grade 12 came along. And I remember having a really frank conversation with my teacher just like, you know, do you think this is viable?
Do you think it’s possible? And he’s like, I can’t promise you anything. But he was like, you certainly love it enough.
And so he just told me to pursue what I loved. And so I did. And grade 12 was split between auditioning for piano schools and then academic things and then theatre schools.
Right. Yeah. And eventually I didn’t get a call back to Ryerson.
I didn’t do too well in a lot of my theatre school auditions. And one night in April, I picked up my bags, went to Montreal. Concordia University was having their auditions.
I didn’t even apply properly. I got to the doors 6am in the morning, first time in Montreal alone, got to the campus, had all my papers, had $60 in cash to be like, this is the fee. Can you please just let me audition?
I auditioned. I got in. And then that was it.
I knew I had to do it.
[Jeff Ho]
So at what point did you tell your mom that you were auditioning for theatre schools? And how did she react?
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, oh, oh, I didn’t tell her. Even getting into NTS, I got in first, got through the three months of, you know, waiting and then the callbacks. And after I got into NTS, I sat her down, had a PowerPoint prepared and was like, these are the reasons this would be smart to go to the school or whatnot.
And I just, I was like, you’re not allowed to say anything now, mom. I’m going to the school. Did she say anything?
Uh, yes. I said, mother, I got into the national theatre school. And she said, how?
So that was the first thing she said. But after a little while, and the great thing was Grey’s Anatomy was on at the time. And so Sandra Oh was a very public figure of the show and a public figure of the school.
And also being Asian, I think helped. So mama was like, she connected the links between NTS and Sandra Oh, it’s possible. And so from that moment onwards, things have started warming up and our relationship has been better than ever.
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
But there was a period where you went away to theatre school. It was hell. You ran away to theatre school and you didn’t like…
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes.
[Jeff Ho]
She took away my money.
[Phil Rickaby]
She took away my money. She would not support me in any way. Yeah.
The first like month or two of being in Montreal, I slept on people’s floors. I remember.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t know how I had the guts to do it. Looking back now. I’m like, I don’t know how.
[Jeff Ho]
Desperation is an amazing thing. If you know that there’s no other way that you’re going to be able to do this. Yeah.
You do what you have to do.
[Phil Rickaby]
Totally. Yeah. And before learning about fear too much, you know what I mean?
[Jeff Ho]
You have to do that kind of thing when you’re young.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly.
[Jeff Ho]
I feel like now I’d be too scared.
[Phil Rickaby]
Well, yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. I mean, after about 25 or so, you’re probably not going to be like, I’m picking up everything and I’m going to… Exactly.
Like just in case I get in. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly. So yeah. But it was really, really, really, really difficult.
I remember. And like, it was all out of love. And I know this.
Yeah. And at first, it was just like, oh, why won’t you let me do it? And all of that.
The more I’m growing up, the more I’m realizing, oh, she really was just trying to looking out for me. She really just wanted me to lead a stable, in her eyes, what would constitute a good, secure, stable life.
[Jeff Ho]
Of course.
[Phil Rickaby]
So that I wouldn’t have to struggle the same way she had to.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Like so many immigrant stories. But at the same time, she is a fiery woman. So fights were just not calm.
So that also didn’t help much, you know?
[Jeff Ho]
I mean, it’s not uncommon because I’ve talked to a few people, different, you know, usually second generation, you know, immigrants and people who go into the theatre often have a similar story. I mean, people who don’t, who aren’t immigrants, they sometimes have a similar story of the battle with their parents. Like about 50, 50 of the people that I’ve spoken to have that sort of like, either my parents were so supportive to, oh, they hate the fact that I’m doing this.
They still ask me like, when I’m going to get a job, you know?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Has your mom come to see your work?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Ever since graduating. Uh, now that, you know, she lives in the GTA, she’s still in Markham.
Uh, she surprises me. I tend to not invite her to shows because I’m embarrassed or shy or, you know, still dealing with it. But most recently she came to Prince Hamlet.
Okay. Um, and various other shows she’s come to. And she always comes at a time where I don’t expect her.
[Jeff Ho]
Okay.
[Phil Rickaby]
Because if she was there, yeah. She knows I would freak out.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. So she’s, it’s not like she comes to like opening or anything. She just sort of sneaks her way in.
[Phil Rickaby]
No, but I’m trying to get her into this opening. Yeah, absolutely.
[Jeff Ho]
How do you think she’s like, does she know what this play is about?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Yeah. A lot of the writing initially was done through interviews with her.
[Jeff Ho]
Okay.
[Phil Rickaby]
Um, and so she knows what I’m writing about. She’s shy about it. She doesn’t quite like that her name’s in it or that I’m embodying her.
But at the same time, I remind her it’s memory and memory oftentimes will be fiction. So if we all just approach it like it’s a story now story with the bones of true history, then that would be easier for her to digest. Yeah.
And I think she would just be, Oh yeah, I’m already feeling like, yeah, I think, you know, like it’s everything she invested in me. I’m sure this is both. This is my writing.
This is my classical piano. This is my acting. It is everything she did actually provide for me.
Okay. And this is my way of being able to acknowledge. Nice.
Thank you for being that wall. Thank you for making it so hard for me that now I have a play about you.
[Jeff Ho]
Well, I mean, it’s interesting because some people, you know, they probably all, it was so hard to do this. My mom, my parents didn’t want me to do this, but if, if you were just able to do it, would you have fought so hard for it?
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly. Exactly. That was the thing.
I feel like that initial rejection from my mother was the strongest rejection. The person who loves you the most unconditionally in this world. If I can surpass that rejection, nobody else’s matters.
No, truly nobody else’s matters. And so that’s just been a great thing. Like NTS, I had, I had to audition twice before getting in.
And so like that first time I didn’t get in, I was like, okay, well I’ll just try again.
[Jeff Ho]
You know, you know, to have that attitude going into auditions, any kind of auditions, that’s like, yeah, some people put so much into, into every audition and every time they’re heartbroken, but to be able to be like, well, yeah, it doesn’t make the heartbreak easy.
[Phil Rickaby]
You know, you still feel the heartbreak. I still certainly get disappointed if I don’t get a role, but at the same time, it’s like, yeah, it’s just a little easier to bounce back to be like, oh, this wasn’t as difficult as when I first started.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. Yeah. The process of writing this show, you were saying that a lot of it was interviews with your mother.
Is it verbatim or have you massaged? What is the process of writing it been like?
[Phil Rickaby]
Massaged.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
The interviews with the mom was really to collect as many memories, as many testimonials about the rest of her family, how she came to be, how much she remembers of great-grandma, because beyond my great-grandmother, we really don’t know what the family line is. She was the last surviving member. And from her moving to Hong Kong, that was the beginning of our syndromes.
Okay. Right. So a lot of just stories of like, how was great-grandma when she was young?
How did she behave around you? And hearing through her words, what she thought of herself, what she thought of her own parents, and trying to capture the cadence of it. I always went with my partner, and he’s an anglophone, so my mother always felt compelled to articulate these stories in English.
[Jeff Ho]
Okay.
[Phil Rickaby]
And when she couldn’t, then she would go into Cantonese. But because of hearing it in English, I was able to hear all these really horrific stories as simply as possible. For example, she had this one story that just really struck me, like, your uncle, he swam, and swam, and swam, then he was safe.
And one can imagine the entire process. One could then make a piece out of that entire thing. But in just those few words, she told the story.
So how do I then capture all of these traumas, 100 years of history, and as a succinct way as possible, and as musical as possible? Because Cantonese is a tonal language. And so, yeah, trying to capture that in English.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah, it’s hard. That is hard. I don’t know if I’m successful.
Well, I’m curious how you approach that. English, which can be a more atonal language, with one that is based so long, so much on tone.
[Phil Rickaby]
Totally. I write with accent in mind. That certainly helps in terms of just knowing the beats of Cantonese.
Everything’s quite staccato. What you can say in four characters, for example, needs to be explained in a paragraph. So how do I try to do the same thing with English?
How do I explain a deep concept or a statement in as little words as possible? And that’s a challenge, with an accent in mind. So that’s definitely been part of the challenge.
And I just keep on throwing myself at it, and then cutting it, cutting it, cutting it, cutting it to as little words as I can possibly use. With the guidance of, you know, a dramaturge director to sort of go like, okay, this isn’t clear whatsoever. Yeah.
Okay, now this is clear. This is clear enough.
[Jeff Ho]
That is, having somebody with you to fill that role is so important. Totally.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
To point out when you, like, when it’s not clear, or when there could be more. And it’s still happening.
[Phil Rickaby]
Even from the run yesterday, there are certain cultural concepts that I don’t explain. So we’re like, do we try to explain it now? Then we add words?
Or do we just simply take it out and say the most direct thing? And so yeah, it’s a constant negotiation. And so as new years come in, and audiences come in, I’m excited to keep on making it clearer and clearer.
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
How did Nina Lee Aquino get involved with this?
[Phil Rickaby]
So I started writing this piece during my time at NTS in second year. We all have a solo show unit. Had it then.
I don’t know if the school does it anymore. I was working with Adam Lazarus, who is opening daughter tonight. I know.
A solo show. And he taught me solo show.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
And so I had written two separate pieces. The one we ended up working on was not Trace. Trace was just this little baby that I was like, oh, I’m actually really excited about this.
And Nina was teaching the class under us at that time. And so again, I don’t know how I had the guts. I just approached her in the hallway to be like, hey, Nina, now that you’re here, I know you have a lunch.
Do you want to just come into a studio with me? I have something to read to you. And so I did.
[Jeff Ho]
It’s amazing the things that we’ll do when we’re younger that we would like probably not do now.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Now I’m like, okay, I should approach artistic directors with cover letters and stuff like that, you know? But back then I was just like, hey, you’re here.
I’m here. You didn’t know any better. You didn’t know any better.
[Jeff Ho]
And it worked out.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes, exactly. I mean, it could have backfired. It could have.
It could have backfired.
[Jeff Ho]
You don’t know.
[Phil Rickaby]
But it didn’t. Which is amazing. So we started working on it from then on, really.
How long ago was that? Oh, so if I was in second year, graduate 2012, so five years ago. Okay.
[Jeff Ho]
So you were working on this on and off with her for five years?
[Phil Rickaby]
When I first graduated, literally a month after I graduated, Iris Turcott and I began working together. She was then company dramaturg still. And so it was this great period of transitioning from coming to Toronto, beginning my acting career, but at the same time, learning writing, learning my own voice as a writer with working with Iris.
I would go to her apartment every Wednesday or here and we would just talk, chat, write. She would read my writing, talk to me. And we did that for a whole year.
It was a masterclass.
[Jeff Ho]
Was writing something that you had imagined doing before NTS or was you thinking of yourself as just an actor?
[Phil Rickaby]
I wanted to be Sandra Oh 2.0. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to be Sandra Oh 2.0. But as I started making my way through everything, I realized, oh, writing has simply always actually been a part of my life. Even at NTS, I had a few publications with Rice Paper Magazine, a Vancouver sort of Asian Canadian magazine.
I kept on writing essays for competitions and stuff like that. I won oftentimes. And so I realized, oh, writing was actually something I had always done anyway.
And so even the thing I wrote that I read to Nina came out as a 25 page poem. It wasn’t quite a script or a theatre piece, but I had just, yeah, it’s something I had always done to express myself. And only now do I real, have I realized that, oh, this is actually, this is actually part of my art.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. It’s interesting because some people, it’s interesting that you, that you were always writing and never sort of connected it with theatre.
[Phil Rickaby]
I never connected it. I don’t know why. And, and yeah, like the more I’m making my way into a writing career now too.
Yeah. I’m surprised I never connected it when I was younger, I guess, because I was so hotheaded wanting to pursue just acting that I just never even considered the peripheries of what other hats do I wear. Again, without knowing better, when one steps into Canadian theatre, one has to work everything in as many capacities as you can or are good at.
[Jeff Ho]
It’s interesting because I’ve mentioned a number of times how the landscape of what’s expected in theatre has sort of changed. When I was in theatre school, we were taught, it was like, you’re going to go in, you were training you to go to the audition, get the job, go to the audition, get the job. And if you don’t do that, I guess you could write your own thing and do free image.
But it was like, if you did that, you were like the failure instead of now where Indie or in fringe is like doing stuff yourself is the launching point. Absolutely.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. And that’s something I didn’t quite get. I’ve done this sort of the festival circuits as an actor and on new pieces, certainly.
So I always had an idea of how they felt, but no, I haven’t had that opportunity as a writer. And so that is a bit of a scare for myself and just sort of being like, Oh, I’m debuting that factory directed by Nina. You know, it’s a little scary.
[Jeff Ho]
Is this your first play that’s being put up?
[Phil Rickaby]
This is my first play. Okay. Yes.
So that’s why I can understand. I was like, Oh, maybe I should have done some of our works or maybe I should have done. But at the same time, it’s where it’s at.
And even with this play being the first, I have a second already lined up, thankfully. And so I was like, Oh, okay. Okay.
That’s okay. Even like I will learn what I need to learn. And I have been learning so much because it’s the first time I’m a playwright in a room on top of everything else.
But that’s a learning process that you can only learn on the job.
[Jeff Ho]
How do you feel about performing this? When I performed my first solo piece, I was going to vomit that whole day. Just out of like, this is the first time I’m saying these words in front of an audience and it’s me and it’s my words.
Do you have that or do you feel more confident?
[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, I’m absolutely terrified. I’m absolutely horrified, terrified, vomiting. Yeah.
Sleeplessness, all of that. It’s a nerve wracking. The team is incredible and Nina has had a lot of experiences debuting new playwrights and stuff like that.
So I feel supported every step of the way, but it doesn’t take away the nerves and it doesn’t take away that exact fear that you’re seeing. Oh my God, these are my words. I’m performing.
But also certain liberties can be had in terms of like, okay, I don’t like this line anymore. I’m cutting it. That’s the kind of freedom that you don’t quite realize that you have until you have it.
Yes, exactly. Especially coming off of Prince Hamlet being like, oh, well, I can’t change this soliloquy no matter. This experience of like, oh wow, this is a certain freedom that I didn’t have, but a certain extra pressure because of that freedom.
[Jeff Ho]
It’s interesting because if you’re acting with other people, you can’t just like drop a line, but if it’s just you.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Except if it’s a queue line, but for the most part, you can.
[Phil Rickaby]
I can just save myself and no one will ever know.
[Jeff Ho]
Nobody will know.
[Phil Rickaby]
And so that is a certain freedom. And that’s why I am really excited for audiences because I feel like part of this really will be off of the energy of an audience. And right now everyone’s heard it many times that we’re just at that phase where it’s, it’s yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Because there’s after a certain point hearing it so many times you start, I know you wonder like, is it still funny? Is this still working? Is it clear?
[Phil Rickaby]
Is it clear? Exactly.
[Jeff Ho]
We’ve all heard it. We know what it means and you don’t really know until the audience is there.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. So I feel like I’m at that. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s terrifying. But at the same time, like it will happen.
Yeah. Um, and it’s what, uh, a lot of teachers from NTS, I remember seeing certain things that only now I remember and cherish back then. I was like, Oh, that will never apply to me.
But for example, Guillermo Verdecchia at school, he’d said like, approach every gig you ever get as just another experiment. You know, like it’s not the end of your life.
[Jeff Ho]
Sure.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s going to die. You do this one. You tried what you needed to try.
You move on and you try something else. Or if you feel like you want to try that again, try it again. Yeah.
But it’s a life in the arts and not just, you know, but for me, because it is a debut, I do feel the culmination of like, Oh my God, I have so much to prove.
[Jeff Ho]
Well, it’s been five years. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah.
Has there been something that’s surprised you in this process?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Yes. Yes.
How for me, language is just music or how I approach the writing we talked about the Cantonese already. Um, but all of those different mixtures, it’s all music to me and how we’re finding, because we dialogue with the pianos, the men are represented through all of the piano voices and I speak all the women’s voices. I embody both.
The piano and the men, but we’re finding that like dialogue, the more I can just seamlessly come off a trill right into a line back into a music line. Um, if the intentions are clear, even when I’m playing the piano, that’s all we need. And so I’m really being surprised by sort of the marriage of music and language.
Interesting. Yeah. And that, I feel like we just talked about experiments.
[Jeff Ho]
That’s my experiment this time around that, that idea of like the men being represented by the piano and embodying the women. Um, at what point did that come about in the process?
[Phil Rickaby]
Um, last year, it’s a more recent thing. We had a point where the piano represented just all the periphery characters. So men, women alike, um, at some point it just was a clarifying factor for listeners because the piano can speak intentions.
The body can help translate what the piano is saying, but it can never say direct literal meaning such as gender, such as, you know. Um, and so it came to a point where we tried it as a two-hander just to have an extra pianist and I got to just act. Okay.
Um, and from that we came to realize, oh, just having all of the piano voices were to play all the men just helps clarity and also then helps specify sort of the different memories. Anytime the women are talking to each other, I’m just in full solo show mode. I’m just fully acting with myself.
Anytime I’m playing with the piano, we know it’s with a man.
[Jeff Ho]
Huh. Yeah. Interesting.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Did you ever worry like embodying somebody like your mother who was a very strong, fiery woman? Um, did you ever have concerns about embodying your mother? Was that something you shied away from at all?
[Phil Rickaby]
Um, no, no, no. It, I am my mother’s son.
[Jeff Ho]
Okay.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I am. Yeah.
Like her. Yeah. I know her rhythms.
I know her stuff and I’m not be, I am being her, but at the same time I’m not her. Right. And so yeah, it’s acting.
Yeah. Hmm.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. And the other women, like, cause the other women you don’t, you’re familiar.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly. Yeah. A great grandma.
I knew up until I was eight years old. Um, so that one is more of definitely, you know, fabrication and fiction. Um, but again, based off of the interviews with the mom, sort of just taking on those personality ticks and my grandma’s still alive.
I just saw her Sunday. Um, my brother just got married. So she came from Hong Kong.
Usually she lives in Hong Kong. And so I observed, I watched sure. Yeah.
And yeah. Does your grandmother know about this? I don’t know.
I don’t speak to my grandma nearly as much. Uh, when I saw her on Sunday, she just said to me, you are taller now. And then we shook hands.
Okay.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Like that’s our level of affection.
[Jeff Ho]
Yes. Conversation was difficult. If you see somebody just that at weddings and that sort of thing, you’re literally a world away.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly.
[Jeff Ho]
Exactly. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah.
I do worry, not necessarily worry, but in this current political climate, I do ask myself, is it, is it cool that I’m playing women? That’s certainly something I ask myself. Is it correct that I’m embodying women?
Those questions? Um, I feel because it is women in my blood and you know, I still do play both genders, but that we just simply hear the women speak. I feel like there’s some leeway there, but it is something like performing gender is something that’s really, really interesting to me, especially coming off of Ophelia.
I just, it’s something that I’m fascinated with.
[Jeff Ho]
What is it about it that fascinates you?
[Phil Rickaby]
I grew up with a lot of films and Chinese opera and Chinese opera tradition. The men played the women. Um, and even films that, again, my mother showed me, they were off like famous Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai.
He had a film about, yeah, the life, the training, the life of a female impersonator in the Chinese opera. And I remember that striking me and also sort of stereotypes of even being as a gay man, a queer man, sort of, uh, if you’re a gaysian, you’re the feminine one in a relationship, you know? And so that’s just simply something that’s always been in me, even at school for one of my theatre Ontario monologues, sort of the graduating showcase, I tried to do and butterfly, which was a story about a man disguised as a woman for years.
Um, and so, yeah, I, I’m not quite sure. It’s something that’s, I saw a lot of when I was a child and it’s something that seems to come up a lot. The opportunity seemed to come to me.
I played transgendered. And again, that’s something that I reflect a lot on. Is that correct?
Nowadays, two, three summer works ago and unknown soldier. And back then it wasn’t, it was about Chelsea Manning. So it wasn’t quite at the level of awareness we are now.
And I wonder if it is right anymore.
[Jeff Ho]
You know, that’s, that’s a really interesting, interesting thing to think about. Cause we are very much at a different, at a different place than even three years ago, absolutely. Where there’s a lot of, you know, you absolutely there’s outcry about men playing transgendered.
Absolutely. And rightfully so.
[Phil Rickaby]
If those performers are there, yeah, they should play the part.
[Jeff Ho]
Absolutely. But this is kind of different. This is not.
Yes.
[Phil Rickaby]
And that’s the thing. Yeah. And this is sort of like, you know, the, all the different facets of me that have come to become me just there.
I speak the women and I play the piano in the men.
[Jeff Ho]
Everyone could, one could, one could argue, could anyone else play your mother?
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. We have been having discussions, Nina and I, in preparation for like, you know, how about if it gets published, what happens if some other company wants to pick it up and you’re not available to do it? How are we going to change it?
And I was like, a woman can play this, a man can play this. I feel like I want to make it so that this play can be performed by either gender. But there are certain skillsets that should be met for this play.
Classical pianist training at a certain level must be able to speak Cantonese and can hold a solo show as an actor.
[Jeff Ho]
And some sleight of hand, I think.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yes. Yeah. But that’s sort of like production by production.
It’s just, it’s like, there’s a lot of smoking in this show. Grandma always was a smoker. So, you know, if cigarettes fly from somewhere or whatever, I’m happy with that.
But for this production, it’s pretty bare. Nina’s aesthetic is really minimal and start in the kid’s season. And so she just wanted cigarettes to appear and disappear.
[Jeff Ho]
Nice. Nice. It’s a really clean way to do it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Interesting to think about, you know, specifying that anybody could play the role, could play that part. Because I think that a lot of times people get hung up on, no, this is how it was done in the original. Right.
Rather than sort of just opening things up and being whatever works for you.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
And within these confines.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Even the music, I’ve chosen music that I’ve played through my childhood or are songs that my family loves, pieces that I’ve used for competitions. And Nina asked, do you want the same music for a future production if somebody else picks this up?
And I said, no, I just want the songs to be close to that pianist’s heart.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
It’s about, you know, communicating the soul. Sure. Sure.
And that’s something that I really got to learn from Ravi last year with Ophelia was that I had a lot of qualms about, oh God, this is a really problematic character in the canon. It’s a difficult part too. How do I portray it respectfully?
And then he just said, fuck respectfully. This is what was written. Yeah.
You got to throw yourself at it. Yes, you’re a man. We will never forget that watching you.
Yeah. But just go for the heart of what she’s going through and we will go there with you. And yeah.
And even through that, there were some women who were really uncomfortable with me playing Ophelia. And then there were some women who were like, it felt so good to watch all the shit I go through every day put on a man’s body. Yeah.
And so that’s sort of exciting in terms of performing gender for me is that this is my choice. This is how I’ve chosen to portray it. And like all shows, the interpretation at the end of the day is up to the audience.
[Jeff Ho]
And what’s interesting about, you know, when you were playing Ophelia and those two different, those two different attitudes, at least people had like, they left discussing that choice and they left, whether they disagreed or agreed, they were talking about it. Exactly.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly.
[Jeff Ho]
Which I think we do rarely in the theatre. A lot of times theatre is very nice and nobody gets offended. Yeah.
And because it’s nice, there’s nothing to talk about after. Totally. I fucking love when I’m leaving the theatre and everybody is just like talking and debating and like, like just discussing the content and all of that.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. And so that was very, very, very exciting to be a part of for that.
[Jeff Ho]
When you were approached to play Ophelia, what was your reaction to that?
[Phil Rickaby]
What the fuck? Really? What?
Yeah, it certainly was a surprise. I don’t know if it’s kosher to say it, but yeah, I was a replacement. Sure.
So it was a last minute casting choice on Ravi’s part. He didn’t even audition me. I didn’t read for anything.
It sort of was just like, let’s go, let’s just go for it. And so I joined the cast quite, quite late into the process and got thrown into it. Wow.
[Jeff Ho]
That’s really it. How did the cast do with that?
[Phil Rickaby]
Because I mean, especially because the last one, they already had workshops and stuff like that too with the original actor. Everybody took it with such grace. I mean, the thing with that was there was so much intersectionality of so many different identities.
And the core one for me in that process was ability. Really, that was at the forefront for me, learning how to work and to shed my own preconceptions of ability. What is an ableist rehearsal room like?
What is it like to work with interpreters being there all the time? What is it like to realize that, oh, being able to hear Shakespeare’s word has been a privilege all my life. That for the first time we got to share it with an audience that never got to get that story, to receive that story the way they need to.
And so that was huge for me, the intersectionality of race, gender, all of that. It was mind-blowing for me. I’m a young artist.
I was 26 at the time. Still am 26. And so that opportunity was just, I am so grateful for it.
[Jeff Ho]
Can I, when you’re working in a room where there’s people who are both hearing and deaf, did you pick up any sign language or did you have to go through? Yes.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. We did individual research and Dawn, who played Horatio, was just so patient with like, you know, I made stumbles, certainly. I had my own ignorances.
Yeah. But she always approached us with generosity, patience and an open heart and a willingness to educate. It’s not her job to educate.
It is my own ignorance that I have to deal with. But she was there to educate. And even with Robbie’s direction, at some point we completely scrapped the second movement to redo it because Dawn said, if this is for a non-hearing audience, this wouldn’t make sense.
This wouldn’t. So we all had to shed our own perceptions and we all had to learn to adapt to one another.
[Jeff Ho]
Interesting because, you know, if you come from a hearing world, you would never even think that something wouldn’t work in that way.
[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly. So it was truly, truly. And then to have audiences wave at us.
[Jeff Ho]
That’s always a new, but like, once you know what’s happening, you can take it the same way that you would take applause that you could hear.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, truly like. Yeah.
And then also to get to work with like some of my idols being a theatre student. That was also a wild ride. Christine Horn.
She’s incredible. I’ve always just been the biggest fan.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
And to know that I had to do the nunnery scene with her. Oh my God.
[Jeff Ho]
How did you, how did you even like, okay. So, so how do you, so I’m sure that you were, you were, you were having some, some fanboyish experiences while you’re rehearsing. Yeah.
[Phil Rickaby]
And she had a baby. I mean, like, right. She just gave birth and came right into rehearsals.
So it was like, she had so much life to go through and the mere fact of Hamlet to go through that. I was really shy to be honest. I was really shy.
It wasn’t really until tech and previews and performances that I got to shed that a little bit.
[Jeff Ho]
It can be really hard to, to, to work with people that you’ve like idolized in that way.
[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And a patience, patience, self learning, self forgiveness to not be like, Oh God, I’m not, you know, I will one day be able to match her or whatever, like all those self things that one goes through. But yeah, they were so kind. And Ravi as a director has been one of the shining moments of working with the director in theatre for me.
He’s so open. He truly is the most collaborative director I’ve ever worked with. Great.
[Jeff Ho]
That’s awesome. Yeah. In terms of you know, this show is running for how long is the run?
Until December 3rd. And once, once it’s done is, do you imagine taking it somewhere else? Do you imagine continuing to perform it?
[Phil Rickaby]
I would love to. Yeah, I would love to. The great thing is it requires two pianos and one actor.
That’s it. And a set of course, of course, of course, but that’s configurable. That’s, you know, quite open.
I would love to tour it. There are certain theatres that I have in mind with a great Chinese population sort of, you know, Vancouver is a spot that would be fantastic for this show. Yeah, so certainly I’m working with a few people to try to get it out.
And we’ll see. I mean, because it is the first and because my name isn’t quite there yet. It is one of those things of like, let’s see what the price is.
[Jeff Ho]
You can only wait until after people have seen it before. You can imagine. Exactly.
Until exactly.
[Phil Rickaby]
You can’t actually do until it’s seen. Yeah. So some patience with that.
But certainly like if this piece has a second life, yeah, I’ll follow it.
[Jeff Ho]
Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean, if there’s a show that you can that you can take with you, you know, it’s sort of a nice thing to have to totally, you know, totally, I can just sort of show up and yeah, and do the show.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
[Phil Rickaby]
And beyond this, I don’t imagine I’ll want to write a solo show ever again. I certainly don’t want to write something that I’m performing in again. And so the next few pieces already I have in mind, or in like heading to production, I’m already like, no, yeah, I’m just playing.
[Jeff Ho]
I’m going to I’m going to give you a warning. Because I felt the same way before I performed a solo show.
[Phil Rickaby]
And then you everybody wanted more. I wanted more. Ah, like, okay.
[Jeff Ho]
Having performed it before I performed, I was terrified of it.
[Phil Rickaby]
Right, right.
[Jeff Ho]
And then after I performed it, first performance didn’t count. I was just getting through it. Yes.
Second performance. When I was in complete command of everything. I was like, I never I have to keep doing this.
Wow. Just suddenly everything shifted. And I was like, I want to continue to create, you know, yeah, other stuff.
But also, I can’t imagine not doing this. Right.
[Phil Rickaby]
I look forward to either feeling that or Yeah, you never know. I will say it’s one of those things that in a week, yeah, call you up and I’ll be like, you are right.
[Jeff Ho]
I will be I will be interested to hear if you’re like, Oh, yes, I definitely want to do this. Or if you’re never again.
[Phil Rickaby]
Never. Yeah, we’ll see. It’s one of those that Yeah, I will.
I will see very soon.
[Jeff Ho]
Like really soon.
[Phil Rickaby]
Really soon. Yeah. First previews on Saturday.
Yeah, and then opening next Thursday.
[Jeff Ho]
It’s so good. And of course, if you only do friends, you never get that preview. Right?
Right. duration. It’s such a such a gift to be able to do that before the the big game.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. So sort of envy that. But also, right, it’s still the preview still feels like a big like it’s, well, it’s still a big deal.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, first audience still. So yeah, yeah. For me, yeah, my own personal opening is Saturday.
[Jeff Ho]
Of course. Yeah, for sure.
[Phil Rickaby]
Like just having that first audience there. I think once that’s out, we’ll see. Things are changing.
You know? Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Are you are you on the social media? Are you on Twitter?
[Phil Rickaby]
I’m on Twitter, Facebook.
[Jeff Ho]
Yeah. What’s your what’s your Twitter handle?
[Phil Rickaby]
at K Jeff.
[Jeff Ho]
Oh, cool.
[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah.
[Jeff Ho]
Do you have a website or no?
[Phil Rickaby]
No. Okay. website.
Cool. It’s something that people tell me is a good idea. So I think one day.
[Jeff Ho]
Okay. Yeah. Awesome.
Jeff, thank you so much for this. It’s been amazing.
