Interracial relationships, both heterosexual and queer, get examined under a microscope in this immersive play. Joey and Gabs give us a tender and funny play that leaves our expectations at the door.
A few minutes before the play, we are passive spectators of what we believe is going to be a traditional narrative, about Joey Jepps and Gabriele Uboldi, the two lead actors that we witness in the poster advertising the show.
However, once the lights turn into us, we are immediately complicit in the story, or dare I say stories?
Because, as our protagonists so kindly explain at the beginning, this uses the classic Chinese box narrative, with three stories packaged into one. The first layer is the understanding of the 1904 Italian opera Madam Butterfly, composed by Giacomo Puccini and written by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, about the tragic love story of Cio Cio San, a young Japanese girl who falls to the charms of an American naval officer Pinkerton and which ending is depressing. The second one is the love story of Joey’s mother, who fell for a British pilot and made a life with him, and her role as a mother and a wife to a white Western person. And the narrative inside of that narrative is the one about one of our leads, a Japanese immigrant who has a long-term relationship with an Italian guy he met in London, both actors and theatre-makers with the prolific work of making plays and curious about delving deeper into Joey’s history, deciding to make a play about how his parents’ love story resembles the one in Madam Butterfly, and how both resemble their current romance.
What may sound confusing in paper is clear on stage for the most part, thanks to the help of two charismatic performers, Joey playing the layers of this character’s heritage, history and sexuality as the role of the documentarian, while Gabs serves as the helping hand to tell his story playing different characters, while slowly getting more and more of an active role throughout the tale. The co-writers and actors also use a projector that showcases homemade videos and photographs, a small toy stage (with clear cardboard backgrounds and cute miniature dolls) and a tape recorder, giving a nostalgic, realistic feel to the whole piece, fleshing the characters and making them feel as real as any of us.
That’s because, whether this story’s factual or a fictional narrative constructed of real-life events, the sentiments and inquiries are genuine in nature. When the play’s heart beats the loudest are whenever Joey speaks with his mother in undisclosed locations, revived by the tape recorder and subtitles displayed on screen; when the boyfriends discuss the beginning and nature of their relationship and how the racial aspect comes into play, having such a powerful discourse on the vestiges of colonialism that even an audience member proclaimed “slay” once our protagonist finished his speech; and when Joey has a confrontation with his past via the help of Gabs acting abilities and ingenue.
However, while the ending’s supposed to stick the landing, after an hour of genuine jokes and introspective and tender observations on race, sexuality, art and truth, it only makes the understanding of it all as a head-scratcher, leaving us disoriented after all we’ve witnessed. A tragic end to an otherwise clever, funny and poignant stage story.