January 16, 2025 - Lasa ng Imperyo, a Filipino adaptation of Jovanni Sy’s critically-acclaimed play A Taste of Empire, lands at Vancouver’s The Nest on Granville Island as part of PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and Boca del Lupo’s Micro-Performance Series. The play will run from January 30 to February 8.
Lasa ng Imperyo brings a female perspective by replacing Sy’s character with sous-chef Mela played by Carmela Sison who translated and adapted the play into Tagalog. The play takes audiences to a thought-provoking journey across the layered history of Philippine cultural heritage through a live cooking demonstration of rellenong bangus (stuffed milkfish), a dish reflective of the country’s traditions and colonial past.
Sison fell in love with the original A Taste of Empire when she saw it in Vancouver in 2015. Jovanni Sy’s play premiered earlier in 2010 in Toronto with the Cahoots Theatre Company and was remounted in Vancouver in 2015 with Sy playing the lone character in both iterations.
In an exclusive interview with Canadian Filipino Net (CFNet), Sison shared the story of how she came into collaboration with fellow Canadian Filipinos Sy and Nina Lee Aquino, artistic director of Canada’s National Arts Centre.
“I remember thinking I would love to do the show as-is,” Sison recalled. But Sy suggested translating the original English-Cantonese play into a Filipino version. “Derek Chan (artistic director of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre) was just going on tour with his Cantonese translation of it and a Filipino version seemed like a very natural next step for the show. When I started working on it, it was very clear that me being a Filipina gives the show a different point of view.”
A natural development came by way of translation not just into Tagalog but also into Taglish - a nuanced dig at decolonisation. Taglish is a colloquial mix of Tagalog and English common in Filipino mainstream media. Sison tells CFNet, “There’s some English and of course Taglish but the majority of it is in Filipino…This is the first time I’m cooking onstage but it’s also the first time I’m taking on a solo show of this size where I’ve been the lead creator.”
It was during her time with the Glassco Translation Residency in Taddousac, Quebec when Sison collaborated with Philippines-born Sy. “It was incredible to be able to write, have Jovanni present to collaborate with and ask questions to. I was also able to connect with other translators and playwrights across the country, all working in different languages.” Sison also worked with Nina Lee Aquino, artistic director of Canada’s National Arts Theatre in the development of Lasa ng Imperyo.
rice and bean’s Interim Artistic Director Anjela Magpantay describes Lasa ng Imperyo: “On the cooking surface, the play is about making rellenong bangus, a traditional dish of the Philippines but when deconstructed, the ingredients reveal something deeper. Carmela’s adaptation adds another layer…(it) allows us to clearly see the intricate cycle of oppression, bringing rich flavours of nuance while changing the way we look at the product of colonialism one bite at a time.”
Speaking with Ricepaper Magazine in 2016, Sy noted, “A Taste of Empire posits that we are what we eat. And that everything we eat tells a story. And these days, that story is full of hidden and not-so-pleasant truths.”
Lasa ng Imperyo is produced by rice and beans theatre with community partners Kasama Chocolate and NPC3. Tickets are available at www.riceandbeans.com.
About the Author
Rachel Ramos-Reid started writing for magazines and newspapers when she was still a junior at the University of the Philippines’ Communication degree program majoring in Journalism. She continued to write in a public relations/corporate communications capacity in various private and government offices until moving out of the country in 1997 to work as Programme Officer for the arts and culture branch of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO-SPAFA) in Bangkok, Thailand. At the end of her term, Rachel found herself immigrating to Canada in the year 2000 and again searching for new beginnings. Currently she is the Executive Assistant to a small rural college on Vancouver Island.
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