Jeannie's Plays www.jeanniesplays.org jbarroga@gmail.com    BANYAN the sold-out run produced by the Asian American Theater Company at New Langton Gallery Theater, San Francisco, CA: (shown) Michael Dorado, Ryan Morales, and Victoria Mejia. Also directed by Francis Tanglao-Aguas: Shelene Atanacio, Roberto Divina, James Lontayao, Jose Saenz, and Vicky Zabarte. on BANYAN, AATC, November 3-20, 2005: www.sfweekly.com A Filipino Dorothy The Wizard in a tree By Michael Leaverton, Frako Loden, Karen Macklin and Hiya Swanhuyser Vicki Zabarte, Ryan Morales, and Victoria Mejia The Wizard of Oz meets the dreaded Filipino fiend the aswang: Does this sound weird, even for a high-concept play? Maybe, but Banyan, by Bay Area playwright Jeannie Barroga, now enjoying its world premiere after a three-year workshop run, is as eccentric as San Francisco theater gets. The aswang is a creature from the rich folklore of the Philippines, a terrifying liver-, soul-, and fetus-sucking spirit that assumes different shapes and stalks the jungle with its feet pointing backward. How do you spot an aswang masquerading as an ordinary human? Ignore, for a moment, its nasty protruding tongue, which can manifest in any friend. The thing to notice is that your reflection in its eye will be upside down, as the beast follows you down the yellow brick road. Banyan is no traditional Wizard production, journeying not to Oz but into the heart of corporate America, where a young woman who works in the shredding room of a business gradually wakes to the corruption all around her. On a vacation back to her cultural homeland in the Philippines, she's joined by a cast of characters that includes the nefarious aswang and terrorist guerrillas, who may or may not prompt a relieved "There's no place like home!" from the heroine as she tackles the jungles. As an Asian American Theater Company production, Banyan promises a level of political awareness that should balance your minimum daily camp requirement…Frako Loden Theatre Bay Area, November 2005: If Dorothy was a modern Filipina American with a soft spot for corpse-eating devils instead of small mutts, she might sound like Ona from Jeannie Barroga’s BANYAN. Trapped by the banalities of corporate corruption and strip-mall Americana, Ona longs to reconnect with her Filipino roots. She years for the simplicity of a people who rely on charms and spells instead of guns to ward off evil. Armed with a slightly off-color EBay-purchased travel guide, Ona embarks on a “trip toward truth” through the land of her cultural origin. But instead of discovering succor and homecoming, Ona finds herself on an allegorical journey marked by hostages, aswangs (soul-sucking witches) and symbolic terrorism. But the friends she meets help her discover the Filipino jungle version of clicking her heels three times to find home—which is, of course, right where she left it. “…In this lovingly crafted world premiere, Barroga uses influences from Filipino folklore and The Wizard of Oz to etch a modern homecoming that first requires confronting a few lions and tigers and bears, oh my. -Amber Adrian www.yelp.com “…Yelp favorites have new plays that have some folks going batty... the Asian American Theater Company's production of Banyan, a modern-day, multicultural variation on The Wizard of Oz that incorporates Filipino fantasy, folklore and humor…” www.thewilyfilipino.com: "...ambitious and fascinating attempt to make some overarching sense of the chaos of the last five years...re-articulating the war on terrorism and the Philippines and the fiscal malfeasance of Enron into a grander and more spiritually resonant narrative... Barroga's play gestures to something bigger than Oz; it wasn't a dream jungle but a place. (And you, and you, and you, and you, were there.) Ona's whirlwind journey may be in her head, but real corruption, and a very real war, is still happening in a real, truly live place." Acclaimed playwright Jeannie Barroga must have done her background research in my Lola's living room, because "Gadgets" had me laughing and crying like I was at home. This story of a Filipino family struggling with love, loss, memories and loyalty spoke to me and touched a chord that left me in struggling through tears throughout the play. The play features some of the best of the area's Flip actors, and the love and care brought to the production by TnT (direction, set design, etc.) is evident. I can't stop raving about it. Don't miss this! Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, PhD Candidate, Dept. of History, Stanford University Barroga's "Gadgets" displayed honestly, grace, with grit and humor. The complexities of each character/spirit/gadget was brilliantly intertwined with intergenerational conflict and resolution. Gadgets challenged many traditional notions of the Filipino American family structure yet it made many of us feel right at home. – Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Professor, S.F. State University “. . .my mouth was wide open half the time the other quarter was laughing and the other quarter - well, that was my right eye fighting to get the rivers out that I didn't even know were there, all of this from the pockets of talent from each...I saw spirits, children, adults, women, tatay, a family. . .sisters . . .” Olivia Malabuyo, Producer I saw GADGETS. Great production - compact, intense, funny and sad and real. I want my mommy. Joey Ayala, International Musician/Performer (picture from Asian American Theater, San Francisco, 1989) REVIEW from: Honolulu Advertiser January 17, 1995 by Joseph T. Rozmiarek [Kumu Kahua Theatre] VIBRANT FILIPINO-THEMED 'TALK-STORY' 'Talk-Story' by Jeannie Barroga focuses on the Filipino immigrant experience -- a group she describes as Asian, but not Chinese or Japanese, and who want to be known for something other than the color yellow or a thousand pairs of shoes. The central character is Dee Abano, a first-generation American daughter in love with old movies, but caught up in an identity crusade. She is also a newspaper copy assistant beginning a series of articles on the Filipino experience, most of which are based on her father's colorful and often-told stories. The situation gives Barroga the opportunity to rapidly bounce between Dee's contemporary experiences and those of her father and uncle in the Philippines and California. Simultaneous histories unfold: the men confronting discrimination with pride and humor, and Dee challenging lingering prejudice and ignorance with fierce determination. What evolves is the clear message that all coping methods come with a price. The older brothers drift into bitterness and denial, while Dee exhausts herself defending against unintended slights. Eventually Dee learns the real truth behind her father's stories and discovers that both of them have used fantasy to escape from a reality that is often imperfect. Barroga's success is that her play is both revealing as a racial experience and a vivid character study -- with strong performances that keep it from becoming a treatise. Director Kati Kuroda gets good work from her small cast, keeps a lively tempo, and assures that the melange of times and places remain distinct, but blend into an integral whole. Maria Quiban is vibrant as Dee, showing her complicated mixture of bravado, yearning, and fantasy. She's alternately a young Katharine Hepburn, hopeful child, and daydreamer -- a too-tightly wrapped a modern woman who convincingly comes a bit unraveled. Lito Capina is excellent as Frank Abano, her father. Capina brings abundant, spontaneous humor to the role, rattling away in a mixture of languages with a melodious voice and wonderful expressions. But there is always a clear dignity in the man that keeps Frank from becoming merely a clown. Rather, Capina correctly makes him intelligent and creative, but also a bit of [a] irresponsible rascal. Warren Fabro is good contrast as the sober Uncle Pedro, aging from a suave young buck to a scolding and abrupt, old man. Brian Messner is appropriately worn down as Dee's boyfriend, Eric Seabury successfully takes on a series of small parts that all reflect a similar intolerance. Sheri Wilson has the least developed role as Dee's friend, largely a plot device to manufacture conversation rather than monologue. The actors work on Joseph Dodd's stark, but creative, stage set that allows for rapid scene changes and memory vignettes behind a dark scrim. "Talk-Story' bring an excellent new voice and perspective to Kumu Kahua's repertoire of plays relevant to Hawaii's audiences. Honolulu Star-Bulletin January 17, 1995 by John Berger [Kumu Kahua Theatre] CHALLENGING 'TALK-STORY' RECEIVES EXCELLENT PRODUCTION There's some unintended irony involved in the local premiere of "Talk-Story," but don't blame Kumu Kahua or playwright Jeannie Barroga. It's just a matter of timing. First, much of the story focuses on the racial prejudice Filipinos encountered in California in the 1930s, but Dee Abano (Maria T. Quiban) seems to find it alive and well in contemporary San Francisco when she's kept waiting for restaurant table. Do conditions today really equate the institutionalized legally enforced racism of the '30s -- even in California? It's also ironic that "Talk-Story" comes here shortly after Frank DeLima again took hits from people who find his portrayal of Filipino culture and mannerisms offensive. "Talk-Story" illuminates the tenuous line separating character from caricature. This is an entertaining and challenging production. Barroga and director Kati Kuroda freely scramble time and space, reality and fantasy in following fledgling journalist Abano as she uses the stories her father told her as material for her newspaper column. Quiban is good in a demanding role. Lito Capina is excellent as her father, Frank. Capina's characterization is as rich and fully detailed a portrayal as is likely to be seen anywhere this theater season. There's no sense that Capina is working at acting, yet he covers a range of emotions. Warren Fabro likewise gives an exceptional performance as Frank's older brother, Pedro. Frank's stories recall his childhood in the Philippines, his experiences as a bachelor in pre-war California, and his wartime adventures back in the Philippines. Other subplots involved Dee's alienation from traditional Filipino culture, her childhood relationship with her often-absent father, her feelings as an American-born Filipino visiting the Philippines, and her reaction to contemporary anti-Asian racism. At heart she's a romantic. Among her interests are Hollywood film classics from the 1930s and '40s -- ironically, an era not known for sensitivity in its portrayals of Asians and African-Americans. She's also prone to exaggerate when recounting her experiences to her friend, Clara (Sheri "Squirt" Wilson). Did she really dazzle her editor (Eric Seabury) and handsome reporter Lon Quinn (Brian Messner) with a '40s-style hard-boiled proposal for a column on Filipinos? Or did the paper simply need something to fill space, or pick her to fill an affirmative action quota? Quiban is bright, spunky, and occasionally strident as Our Heroine -- insecure men might find it comfortable to take the easy way out and label Dee Abano a "bitch." It's not that simple. This isn't the first time Kumu Kahua production in which white characters tend to be either foaming racists or well-intentioned bumblers. Quinn fits the latter category; he obliviously refers to Akira Kurasawa as a "Jap" director, and is generally clueless in relating to Dee's concerns either as a Filipino or simply as a woman, Messner carries off that thankless assignment; Seabury plays a number of cookie-cutter [sic] racists as well as two more sympathetic roles. Hawaii residents are probably more aware than most mainlanders of the daunting conditions Filipinos faced before World War II. American race laws made it almost impossible for Filipino women to immigrate; Frank isn't exaggerating when he tells his daughter of the 20-1 male-female ratio. Barroga also mentions that American laws prohibited marriages between whites and other races years after Hitler was dead, and that the United States invaded the Philippines in 1898 and crushed the Filipino government. The staging of "Talk-Story" is as striking as its content. Joseph D. Dodd's minimalist set is stark and adequate; titles projected on a screen announce each change of locale. Laura Keaunui's costumes and Keith Kashiwada's choice of music contributes further in the establishment of time and place. As usual, the Kumu Kahua playbill doesn't include a glossary. The performance of Capina and Fabro go a long way in transcending the language barrier. Hawaii residents should be familiar with Frank's tales of hard work, frugality, racial prejudice and taxi dancers. Anyone who isn't should be sure to see "Talk-Story." Asian Week (San Francisco, CA) May 17, 1991 by Don Lau [Brava! For Women in the Arts, San Francisco, CA] "Kenny Was a Shortstop", But Is Still a Hit How would you feel if your son was accidentally killed during a youth gang shootout which was detailed in a newspaper story taking up about 1/6 of a page? The legacy of such grief is explored in Jeannie Barroga's "Kenny Was a Shortstop" at San Francisco's Brava! Studio Theater. The one act play is based on a true incident. On July 15, 1990 in Stockton, California, Leobardo Barajas, an 18-year-old Filipino youth, was accidentally gunned down with another person during a gang war shootout. Five other people were wounded. The accused are 12 members of a Filipino youth gang, Bahala Na ("Anything Goes"). The accused face 348 criminal counts. The defendants entered their pleas on April 15, 1991. Relatives and friends of wounded victims are usually overlooked by the media in its reportage of these unfortunate events. "Kenny" gives the audience a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the parents who continue to mourn the untimely death of their son, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cora (Janis Chow) is a reporter who interviews Tommy (Ron Muriera) and Nan (Wilma Consul) over a period of time for an indepth article on the aftermath of their son's murder. Michael Ordona portrays the late Kenny in flashbacks which build a jigsaw portrait of a youngster frustrated by racism that blocks both his career choices ("I'm not a g--k[y] geek!") and his pursuit of an Asian girl who prefers white Americans because "I have to have standards." The boy feels like "leftovers instead of prime beef" and decides to become a rebel with a cause: To strip off the barnacles of the so-called "model minority" image by being a bad boy. Kenny's one fleeting moment of glory was a double play when he was a shortstop on the school baseball team. The irony, of course, is that an Asian American kid, who vainly tried to assimilate in White America, was able to achieve a nanosecond of distinction in baseball, an all-American sport. Kenny's mom wants that one bright instant of happiness to be described in Cora's story to counterbalance the negative press. It isn't. "[H]eart, mind? Where is it? Not in this 'sixth of a page'. . .[He looked like them, and they killed him. They gang together because that world out there MAKES them! And THAT's the real enemy . . .That's what makes the war,]" Nan cries out. Base Hit The only major problem with "Kenny" is that it's only one act. Ron Muriera does a credible job as the aloof fisherman father who wonders what went wrong with his son. Wilma Consul gives a good performance as the mother whose grief boils just beneath the surface. Michael Ordona is a Filipino James Dean. Finally, Barroga handles both the subject matter and the cast with just the right amount of sensitivity to effectively dramatize the anguish of the forgotten victims of gang violence without fortifying the stereotypes that the mainland media foster about so-called "Asian gangs." "Kenny" may have been a shortstop, but it's definitely a hit. ["Kenny" was part of a "Woman Times Three" series of one act plays which showcase San Francisco women directors.] photo caption: Ron Muriera (left) and Michael Ordona in "Kenny Was a Shortstop", a world premiere written and directed by Jeannie Barroga (Photo by Jason Potts) Philippine News review (San Francisco, CA) May 1991 by Rene M. Astudillo, Contributing Editor Kenny Was a Shortstop – Short Filipino Play Says A Lot [Brava! For Women in the Arts, San Francisco, CA] “Kenny Was a Shortstop,” by Filipino writer Jeannie Barroga, is based on a true story. On July 15, 1990 Leobardo Barajas, 18, was killed with one other person in Stockton, California. The 12 accused are members of a Filipino youth gang called Bahala Na (“anything goes.”). This one-act play is about the past and present. It reminisces significant facets of Kenny’s life before he was fatally shot. Occasional flashbacks paint a vivid picture of Kenny (played by Michael Ordona) as lacking in self-confidence and unable to deal with failure and frustration. When he gets jilted by the girl he likes, he slips into a non-conformist personality as a way of getting the attention he wants. However, the flashbacks merely provide the basic scenario for the play. The real setting is about a Filipino Chinese journalist (Janis Chow as Cora) who interviews Kenny’s parents (Wilma Consul as Nan and Ron Muriera as Tommy), hoping to interject a “human interest” twist in the murder story. In the beginning, Nan volunteers all information, complete with Kenny’s scrapbooks. She goes all out, including pressuring Cora to stay for dinners, to make sure that the newspaper story will be the “perfect” one last memory of Kenny. Tommy, on the other hand, was more aloof, hardly responding to Cora’s questions. Nan was not pleased with Cora’s first article and demands that a proof of succeeding stories be first presented to her. In her last visit to the couple’s house, Cora was treated to an interesting twist she had not expected. Cora accuses Tommy of not having given enough attention to Kenny. Tommy, in turn, says that he himself needed some attention for Nan. Like Kenny, Tommy says he was also a baseball player. “But you never asked,” he says to Nan. Embarrassed by what she was hearing, Cora begged to leave, but only after Nan had asked her to “leave out” from her newspaper story the “new information” that had surfaced. The play ends with Nan asking Tommy to pick just one bitter melon from the garden. It will just be dinner for two. Barroga’s script is an effective mix of the past and the present, being able to tell Kenny’s story while dramatizing the couple’s own. It is a realistic mix of Filipino culture (of hospitality, backyard gardening, and adobo – the popular dish) and the American way of life (baseball and fishing for leisure, among other things). It depicts a Filipino American household of conservative parents and “Americanized” children. It speaks of the Filipino pride that shuns damaging “scandals.” Ordona as Kenny is believable as a Filipino growing up in America. Consul (with a curly wig) and Muriera (with that baseball cap), faking a strong Filipino accent, are almost real and certainly funny. Chow could very well be the journalist of Channel 7. It was a cast efficiently put together, under the able direction of the scriptwriter herself. “Kenny Was a Shortstop” is a short play that mirrors a lot. WALLS Review by Jim Carnes, Sacramento Bee, January 27, 2004: (partial cast photo on the Home Page) "Walls," a presentation by the new Ethnic Theater program at Sacramento City College, is a play about the design and building of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the controversy surrounding it and its designer, Maya Lin, a 21-year-old Chinese American student. Error! Unknown switch argument.But the drama, which concludes with three performances this week, is about other walls as well -- the walls that separate us individually and racially, walls of bigotry and fear and misunderstanding. Bay Area playwright Jeannie Barroga, a Filipina, has written a challenging and provocative play, which she describes in the program as "a woman's viewpoint on a male war. Specifically, a woman of color's viewpoint on an essentially racist war which to this day ... people (don't) want to recognize." Barroga's attentions are split between two main story threads -- the controversy over the design and the designer, and the stories of citizens and former soldiers who come to the Wall seeking solace. The former, surprisingly, is the more interesting. Although her design was chosen unanimously by the board appointed to select a fitting memorial to those who died in the Vietnam War, Lin faced almost immediate resistance. Veterans, primarily, didn't like the stark design, with its flat walls and simple name and date inscriptions "like a big, black tombstone." They wanted a flag and a statue. Lin demanded that the memorial be implemented as designed. Changing it, she said, would be like "drawing mustaches on other people's art." Once the walls were installed, however, most veterans admired the memorial and admitted that it made a powerful statement. Bria Marie turned in a solid performance as Lin, going from reticent student to confident and adamant artist. John Crabtree was equally fine as Jan Scruggs, one of the veterans behind the movement that raised more than $8 million in private funds to build the memorial. He brought believable passion to the role. There are several stories of visitors to the Wall, including a soldier who lost 12 members of his battalion, a former war protester who mourns two dead friends, a nurse who tended injured soldiers upon their return to the States, a soldier whose mind is damaged from the carnage he saw and another soldier who expected to march home a hero but came back in a wheelchair. Unfortunately, most of these stories weren't convincing. Only the scenes of Sarah, the nurse (played by Chenelle Doutherd), and Morris, the disabled vet (Quarmaine Bogan), resonated. Doutherd seemed particularly at ease, speaking in a free and natural rhythm. Bogan began with seething anger but, through his exchanges with the nurse, started to understand that not all war wounds are as immediately evident as his but that they can be just as crippling. The actor revealed surprising depth. The City Theatre production, directed by Angela-Dee Alforque, features a multiethnic cast reflective of those who actually fought the Vietnam War and those who ran it or protested it from afar. It's a commendable effort. The play is episodic and runs long, at a little more than two hours, yet at Friday's performance the audience of approximately 60 remained seated after the final bows to watch a newsreel-like film clip of the current war in Iraq that eerily echoed the Vietnam-era footage that had introduced the play. Entertainment (Stockton, CA) [Asian American Repertory Theatre, Stockton, CA] "Walls" recreates special moments -- On June 18, 1993, at Stagg High School, Manlio Silva auditorium, Stockton, California, the Asian American Repertory Theatre presented the fourth production of WALLS by Jeannie Barroga, a young Filipina playwright. The inspiration for the play was a notable group -- a whole generation from the '60s and '70s -- that came together on a long narrow peninsula in Southeast Asia called Vietnam. The story WALLS, which received two standing ovations at its opening Friday night -- one for the play and one for the playwright -- carries the audience through the historical two-year background of the controversy behind the building of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and moves the audience forward to the day of its dedication in 1984 -- all the time painting a human canvas of the American affected by that war, both living and dead. Controversy surrounding the building of the memorial hinged on not only the reason for it and design of it, but also on the 21-year-old architecture student, Maya (played by Kerry Ito) who happened to be a Chinese-American, and whose design entry won over those submitted by other candidates. Ray Newman, the Director, said, "The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, a black granite wall with more than 58,000 names carved on it began a healing process that is still going on today. The play is not just about that wall. It's about other walls: walls of fear, prejudice and hatred, walls to keep out those thing which cause us pain, to protect us from things we would rather not face; walls that keep us apart. I have enjoyed watching this cast, as fine a group of actors and technicians as I have ever worked with, building their characters and develop a passion to present a play that will honor all those who served in Vietnam." The background to the Stockton production is varied and dramatic. There were 21 roles portrayed by 18 actors. The Artistic Director, Val Acoba, had solicited scripts from playwright Jeannie Barroga of the Bay Area and chose WALLS which, since 1987, had three productions and is scheduled for publication this September. The local Filipino-American actors were Fel Tengonciang, who played Stu, a veteran who found he no longer shared a life with his buddy who didn't go to war and couldn't understand him; Ken Alfonso played Rich, a newsman; Alfonso Cabrera, a parent who visits the Wall with his wife to see their son's carved name; and Alex Hernandez, who stepped in two nights before opening after a full day of cramming for the role of Jerry, one of the ghosts. To set the mood for the play, memorabilia such as photos of veterans in Vietnam, letters, poetry, flags, etc., some gathered from as far as Sacramento, were displayed in the lobby by Terry Andree and other VV's. Andy Rallojay, Jr., a Filipino-American Vietnam veteran helping with the lobby display, heard the rehearsal and went home inspired and wrote a touching poem recollecting his experience, framed it and placed it in the lobby for all to read. On opening night, the audience, resembling much of the cast itself, saw a play unfold telling finally their stories and/or expressing some of their feelings about the war. By the end of the play, the 'tolling of names like a bell in your head' brought tears to Andy and the twenty or so vets and audience members and even to the cast itself, as some of the names called were those of sons, brothers and friends who were Stocktonians and former students at Stagg High School. A special night had happened; a special moment was re-created that accomplished the same thing as in Washington, D.C. before the real WALL.