Everything Has Disappeared is so original. I enjoyed it so much.
Because, for starters, Hazel Venzon. I haven’t seen her onstage in years. Venzon’s Instagram bio might explain why: “Producer Director @unit productions sometimes I will act in plays or movies & TV when I’m desperate for rice.” No offence, but I wish she were desperate more often. I’d say she’s a charming performer, but that adjective could make her sound manipulative or subservient and Venzon is not that; she’s a lifeforce and she’s willing to share.
For most of Everything Has Disappeared, which she co-wrote with Torontonian Darren O’Donnell, Venzon is the sole performer.
The theatre is the perfect place for her to explore her themes. Venzon is Filipina and “especially interested in narratives that illuminate the Filipino-Canadian experience”, according to Insta. Everything Has Disappeared is about the Filipino concept of pakikiramdam, which she defines as “feeling shared feelings”. As Venzon explores this concept with us, it becomes apparent that pakikiramdam’s intuitive empathy is deeply physical. The essence of theatre is also physical, shared, and fundamentally — I’d say — about compassion. So, lots of overlap.
This emphasis on physicality results in a texturally rich work. As conceived by Venzon and O’Donnell, and directed by Emilia Symington Fedy, Everything Has Disappeared is, above all, kinetic. Here’s the trailer to give you an idea. Dressed by costumer Brenda McLean in spangly cream, beige, and silver — sequinned jacket and platinum wig — Venzon is like a human disco ball, spinning on cue, moving in and out of the curtains and angles of potatoCakes_digital’s set, which is, in turn, richly swathed in kinetic projected imagery.
Most importantly, Venzon’s relationship with us, her audience, is directly physical. She chats with us, reads minds, invites us to interact with our neighbours, and does the occasional magic trick. The surprises keep coming, which is excellent, excellent, excellent.
And there’s a point. Venzon reminds us that Filipino labour keeps the world turning in essential sectors, including the manufacture of semiconductors. The international exploitation of Filipino labour is, of course, a form of colonialism. Everything Has Disappeared imagines what the world would be like if Filipinos just… vanished. It ain’t pretty. This fantasy strikes me as an expression of legitimate anger and, deeper than that, a demand for recognition, an invitation to engage in some long-overdue pakikiramdam.
The creators of Everything Has Disappeared have placed this run in the context of Vancouver’s Lapu-Lapu Day tragedy of almost a year ago, which brings a further level of healing to the experience. It was a pleasure for me, as an English speaker, to sit in an audience for a show that’s delivered mostly in English and partly in Tagalog, with folks sitting around me who were fully getting the Tagalog bits, even though I wasn’t. It all felt so congenial, familial, and rich. There was such joy in sharing a space that was, in its use of language, celebrating diverse forms of music.
EVERYTHING HAS DISAPPEARED by Hazel Venzon and Darren O’Donnell. Directed by Emilia Symington Fedy. A co-production from UNIT Productions and Mammalian Diving Reflex in collaboration with The Chop. At the York Theatre as part of the PuSh Festival until February 1. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: The radiant Hazel Venzon.
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