Josette Jorge stars in Soulpepper Theatre Company's Bad Parent at Toronto's Young Centre for the Performing Arts.DAHLIA KATZ/Soulpepper
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- Title: Bad Parent
- Written by: Ins Choi
- Director: Meg Roe
- Actors: Josette Jorge, Raugi Yu
- Company: Soulpepper Theatre Company
- Venue: Young Centre for the Performing Arts
- City: Toronto, Ont.
- Year: Runs to Oct. 9, 2022
It only struck me while watching Bad Parent at Soulpepper how few plays about parenting young children there actually are.
There are scores upon scores of stage shows where horrible things happen to little ones offstage (or, in a certain strain of British playwriting, on stage). But there are very few about the day-to-day drama of living with babies, toddlers or preschoolers – feeding them and caring for them without losing your sanity, or your career, or your spouse.
Bad Parent, a new comedy by Kim’s Convenience playwright Ins Choi having its world premiere in Toronto right now before heading to Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange and to the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, is therefore a welcome entry in a limited genre.
And, hey, at less than 90-minutes long, its exhausted target demographic may be actually able to stay awake all the way until the bows.
Norah (Josette Jorge) and Charles (Raugi Yu) are the mom and dad of Mountain, an “18-monther” – to use the parental parlance that drives Charles up the wall.
The two introduce themselves directly at the top of play and try to tell a charming romantic story about how they met – but when their narratives don’t quite line up, irritation peeks through.
In Bad Parent, Norah (Josette Jorge) and Charles (Raugi Yu) are the mom and dad of Mountain, an '18-monther.'DAHLIA KATZ/Soulpepper
Bad Parent is primarily concerned with how having a child has complicated Charles and Norah’s marriage. Each of them hopes the audience will help them sort things out – or take their side, anyway, in a series of disputes big and small. Indeed, the play’s title invites us to try to figure out which is the singular bad parent.
Norah, who works for a production company, is delighted to be finally back to work after mat leave, and makes no attempt to hide that delight. The pleasure she feels at being away from her son and being able to act like an adult is something she feels guilty about – but not for very long.
Charles, a rock musician reluctantly turned music supervisor, is now on parental leave for a bit himself – and is surprised to find that Norah has, nevertheless, hired a nanny to care for Mountain.
It’s hard to blame Norah for doing this, however, once you realize that Charles can only really connect with his son when he is “challenging” him – for instance, taking him to IKEA without a diaper on in a premature attempt to toilet train.
The actors each have a second part: Jorge not only plays Norah, but the nanny – Nora-with-no-H – who has two kids of her own back in the Philippines. Yu not only plays Charles, but Dale, a charming co-worker of Norah’s.
Norah adores making stress-free small talk with Dale, while Charles loves the uncomplicated relationship he has with Nora. It’s so easy to be with other people and not fight when your roles are strictly defined in a workplace situation.
Written by Kim’s Convenience playwright Ins Choi, Bad Parent is primarily concerned with how having a child has complicated Norah (Josette Jorge) and Charles' (Raugi Yu) marriage.DAHLIA KATZ/Soulpepper
When they are together as parents, however, Norah and Charles have trouble talking to each other about anything without squabbling – and so they turn to the audience. The problem, Choi suggests, is that they don’t know their parts any more – how should a mom and dad be these days, and what should they be to each other?
While Bad Parent doesn’t get into the weeds of social-media phenomena such as TikTok parenting accounts or Instagram Momfluencers, there is something in Choi’s chosen form for the play that speaks to the constant judgmental gaze parents feel as they perform parenthood, which, of course, is not just online, but in front of extended family or simply at the playground.
Director Meg Roe’s production features likeable, loose performances (especially from Jorge), and has a relaxed feel to it. There’s often the sense that the characters are chatting to us – for better or for worse.
Sophie Tang’s design is a big part of its comedic appeal: a set mainly comprised of a highly recognizable white wall-mounted storage unit filled with books, general kid junk and baskets of toys, including a car that makes a hilarious cameo appearance at one tense point by singing a song about racing.
Bad Parent doesn’t have much in the way of plot – Charles crosses a line by encouraging the nanny to launch a food truck – but then who has time for more of a story than that with a baby in the house? This is an exploration of that point in time – and its ending is almost Beckett for parents: We can’t go on, we’ll go on.
Choi’s first major play since his hit 2011 comedy-drama about a Korean-Canadian family, which was turned into a CBC (and Netflix) sitcom, sees the playwright exploring a more explicitly theatrical form – almost like he wanted to write something that absolutely could not be turned into a TV series. The attempts to include the audience, however, could use some clarifying in writing and direction; the characters sometimes wait for responses, and at other times they don’t, and a battle of sympathies never really materializes. (There’s also one scene where Norah appears to be asking Charles for a divorce that’s just confusing.)
In line with Kim’s Convenience, however, Choi has written characters who are widely relatable, steers away from trending politics and is unafraid to crack dad jokes about, say, IKEA. As a parent of a “41-monther,” I found much to nod along to, laugh at or shake my head at in sorrowful recognition.