“The English dominance of language on stage is what comes first,” says Pedro Chamale.
As the co-founder and artistic director of Rice & Beans Theatre, Chamale is challenging and changing that thought in the local theatre industry.
The Vancouver-based theatre company creates and presents multilingual plays for Canada’s diverse communities. Its two annual artist residencies DBLSPK and Polyphonic are for actors, playwrights, directors, theatre artists or translators to develop multilingual plays.
Chamale starts by asking the resident artists what they want to do and what they need to achieve it.
Started in 2017 in partnership with theatre company Boca del Lupo, DBLSPK has since worked with a multitude of languages including Cantonese, Mandarin, Farsi, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Punjabi and Spanish.
The Polyphonic residency is an expansion of DBLSPK and prioritizes deepening the field of multilingual theatre makers.
One local artist and one out-of-town artist are invited to work on their multilingual projects for 10 days in Vancouver.
Artists are allowed to put in as much or as little English in their work as they want, Chamale explains.
Program participant workshopped piece in Mandarin and English
DBLSPK alumna Jasmine Chen saw Rice & Beans co-founder Derek Chan as invaluable because he understands Mandarin and can speak it a bit and he can also read and write in Chinese.
The piece Chen workshopped, Jade Circle, was about reconnecting with her late grandma by relearning Mandarin and uncovering lost stories of her grandmother’s past through interviews with her mother.
The Taiwanese Singaporean artist says she trusted Chamale and Chan because they’re writers who understand what is needed to create a multilingual play and how to present subtitles artistically.
Most people are used to plain, functional subtitles in films or TV, she notes.
When it’s live theatre, Chen wants to make them part of the visual storytelling.
For Jade Circle, Chen used her sister’s paintings to create a moving background. She imagined the whole stage to be like a storybook, asking herself: With this beautiful illustration, how do the words fit inside that picture?
Chen tried to have both languages as much as possible.
When she spoke in Mandarin, English subtitles were projected and vice versa.
Theatre in Vancouver should be a reflection of the 'world around us'
For a city as diverse as Vancouver, it makes sense to have more multilingual performances on stage, says Chen.
“If you’re walking down the street or sitting on the bus or SkyTrain, you’re gonna hear tons of languages around you,” Chen observes.
“Our job in theatre is to really try and reflect the world around us.”
Chen says that the biggest takeaway from her residency is that there’s a real hunger for more diverse stories and more languages on stage.
She said it’s powerful and affirming to see and hear your language on stage because it signals to people that their stories matter.
“Every language comes with its own worldview and its own unique texture.”
Chamale has noticed a greater interest from larger theatres in “cultural” work and connecting with artists but wonders where the development streams are to support them.
The Guatemalan-Canadian heard someone say in a meeting once, “Well, these are all emerging folks.”
And he thought, “Of course they f*cking are. They haven’t had the chance to be featured on a stage yet.”
Residencies focus on process, positive outcomes
The Rice & Beans residencies are where underrepresented theatre artists can learn their craft and experiment without having to worry about not selling enough tickets and possibly being the downfall of a local theatre company.
The residencies are "process-based," which means the artists are allowed to explore linguistically without the pressure to produce a product.
Because other theatre companies are taking risks on multilingual artists, those creatives need to have places to try out their ideas and get them ready for those larger stages, adds Chamale.
With 13 years in the theatre industry, Toronto native Chen said, to her knowledge, no other development program such as this exists in Canada.
The closest programs are translation residencies, which focus on translating a play from one language to another.
Banff’s Playwright Lab had the theme of multilingual work in 2021; the theme of the annual program changes each year.
DBLSPK helps theatre artists formulate a piece baked in a bilingual or trilingual mindset from page one and that’s what Chen finds so unique.
When Chamale started Rice & Beans with his friend Chan in 2010, Chamale’s definition of success was if he got people in the seats and saw his friends and family at the shows.
Today, that benchmark has changed and he aims for two wins for each project.
“One, if our artists walk away feeling held and cared for, that they were able to have a fruitful experience with us, that’s a success.”
A second achievement is if the audience walks away engaged and ready for discussion or change. Chamale doesn’t want attendees after the show to go, “Oh, well, that was nice,” and then forget about it.
Even if an audience member has a bad reaction, for example, if they become angry that their own experience was portrayed on stage, Chamale is still hopeful for a positive outcome. He says even that kind of response can lead to productive action or change.
