About the Plays:

The Canadian play anthology Love and Relasianships is a definitive record of a theatrical movement, a movement that reflects a multiplicity of styles and genres, joined together by the singular fact that they are a series of plays written by Asians, for Asians… and for Canada. Editor Nina Lee Aquino's anthology is an important resource for teachers and actors alike.

The first of two volumes Love and Relasianships draws from a rich history of Asian-Canadian theatre on stages across Canada featuring six plays in chronological order from 1982 to 2002:

Yellow Fever is an award-winning comic mystery by Rick Shiomi that follows hard-nosed Japanese Canadian private eye 'Sam Shikaze' as he investigates the disappearance of the mysterious 'Cherry Blossom Queen'. Set on Vancouver's Powell Street in the 1970s, Yellow Fever is a noir-genre detective thriller that deftly navigates complex threads of political intrigue, racism, and police corruption with a sharp wit and fast-paced dialogue. An Off-Broadway hit and New York Times Critic's Choice, Yellow Fever is a cornerstone in the Japanese-Canadian theatre canon. (Premiered in 1982 at the Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco; Cast: 2 female, 3 male)

Bachelor-Man by Winston Christopher Kam: Set during the time of the Immigration Act of 1923 which prohibited Chinese women and families from joining their men in Canada, Bachelor-Man is told through the eyes of six men in Toronto’s Chinatown "Bachelor Society" and the two women who enter their lives. It not only portrays the bachelor society in all its despair, but through its two female characters, reveals the deplorable treatment of Chinese women by their men, and the struggles of homosexual and mixed race Chinese within the community. (Premiered in 1987 at Toronto's prestigious Theatre Passe Muraille; Cast: 2 female, 6 male)

Maggie's Last Dance by Marty Chan: At a high school reunion, a wallflower tries to recapture love, while her former classmates revisit the pain that is known only as "High school in the 70s." (Premiered in 1996 at the Edmonton Fringe Festival; Cast: 3 female, 3 male)

Mother Tongue by Betty Quan: Mimi is a second-generation Canadian whose widowed mother speaks only Cantonese; her 16-year-old brother has lost his hearing and now signs – in English. Mimi acts as their communication bridge. When she gets the chance to go away to school, she has to decide if the family can survive the generation, language and culture gaps. Particularly suitable for schools and play contests. (Premiered in 1995 at Vancouver's Firehall Arts Centre; Cast: 2 female, 2 male)

Noran Bang: The Yellow Room by M.J. Kang : A child's-eye view of a Korean family's emigration to Canada. The play, inspired by a memory fragment, starts off full of dreams and ancestral memories, recalling that time in childhood when reality, dream and hallucination are equally real. (Premiered in 1993 when she was eighteen years old at Toronto's prestigious Theatre Passe Muraille; Cast: 2 female, 2 male, with doubling)

The Plum Tree by Mitch Miyagawa tells the story of a young man, George Murikami, who has returned to the Fraser Valley farm in B.C. where his family once lived. Of Japanese descent, the family was removed from the farm by the Canadian government during the Second World War. Mirukami comes in search of his past, a quest complicated by the hidden agenda of the farm's new owner. (Premiered in 2002 at Whitehorse, Yukon's Nakai Theatre; Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

About the Editor:

Nina Lee Aquino is a director, dramaturge, actor and playwright, who completed her B.A. in Drama at the University of Guelph and her M.A. in Theatre at the University of Toronto. She is currently the artistic director of fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company, the artistic producer of CrossCurrents Festival.