The Folding Wife to show at the Powerhouse as part of national tour

IT HAS taken nine years to get here, but an evocative play about immigration will finally hit the Brisbane stage as part of a national tour this month.

The Folding Wife was first envisaged by writer Paschal Daantos Berry after the death of his Filipina mother in 2001.
Six years later it debuted in Sydney to critical acclaim.
“The work is poetic and language-based so it’s nice to see that it hasn’t dated,” he says.
Philippines-born Berry, who moved to Australia when he was 10 years old, says it took several years before he felt ready to write The Folding Wife because his mother’s death was too close and personal.
But he believes the long creative process has added to its richness, partly through forming a collaboration with Manila-based multimedia artists Anino Shadowplay Collective.
Puppetry, Berry felt, would add an extra dimension to the production.

Shadowplay artists Datu Arellano and Teta Tulay use simple and advanced technology to produce thought-provoking images.
To create focal illusions, Arellano and Tulay use computer-made videos, cut-outs from overhead projectors, hand animation, magnifying glasses and water bottles.
“It’s taken a long time to develop but there is a greater sense of intimacy with the work,” Berry says.
“It has been a labour of love for all of us . . . there is a deeper connection among people working on the show.” Berry originally planned a play involving several performers, but soon realised his sister, actor Valerie Berry, could carry the 75-minute production.
“I wrote the work for her,” he says. “We’ve always wanted to work together.” The Folding Wife is set in the Philippines and Australia and involves three generations of women, with Valerie acting out all their stories. Grace is a young Filipina woman who grew up in Outback Australia and she talks about the most influential women in her life:
her mother Dolores and grandmother Clara.
“I wanted to present the essential differences between cultures when they collide and to show the incredible lives people had before they came to Australia,” he says.
Berry says he hopes to make people think about issues surrounding migration, especially with Australians coming from diverse cultures.
SEE
The Folding Wife, Brisbane Powerhouse, startsWeduntil May 15, $27/$32, www.brisbane powerhouse.org.