Ziye Hu, Robert Lee, George Chiang, and Renée Wong in Bachelor Man | Photo by Lyon Smith
I applaud Renaissance Canadian Theatre Company for riviving a play that addresses a very specific, dark time in Canadian history—honouring not just playwright Winston Kam’s efforts, but also paying tribute to the Chinese community of then and now. The theatre scene of 1987 didn’t quite know how to embrace Bachelor Man. Set in a teahouse in Toronto’s Chinatown, on Dominion Day of 1929, and featuring six Chinese men huddled together while the “Humiliation Day” parade passes by outside, it confronts the legacy of the Exclusion Act and the Canadian government’s ill treatment of immigrants.
Separated from wives and families, these bachelor men have built women up in their imaginations as mythical creatures. Traditional values clash with contemporary sensibilities and this unattainable ideal, along with the surrounding racism, leads to toxic attitudes, socially accepted abuse and conflict.
And I wish it was a better play—as written, as performed. Again, I appreciate the intention, though the script is more informative than dramatic. For the most part, characters announce their truths and we are meant to take it all at face value. It was hard for me to feel these truths since the actors haven’t quite internalized them and their mannered, sometimes wooden performances seem under-rehearsed. Directors Brenda Kamino (who also did some doctoring of the script) and Diana Belshaw have blocked it all with a keen aesthetic flair, though very little here feels natural. There are, however, pockets of authentic emotion and many details of the characters lives have significant, inherent meaning—on their own terms, in the telling.
There is John (George Chiang), the teashop owner, who is missing his “rice cooker” back in China. Though he and Grandad Lian (Robert Lee) use the term affectionately, it is obvious how thoroughly the value of women has been reduced to their usefulness to men. John proves to be unwavering in his oppressive attitude towards women, clinging obstinately to Grandad’s old ways.
This eventually puts them at odds with the others: Kao (Sean Baek) missing an arm from battle, numbing himself with alcohol, Huang (Ziye Hu) a gay man trying to assert himself amidst their wary acceptance, Kung (Oliver Koomsatira) a “half-breed” also trying to find his place in their community, and Asi (Damon Bradley Jang), a young teashop worker who seems less fleshed-out than the others, awkwardly observing the expositional, sometimes heated conversations. Their fraught interpersonal dynamics and precarious alliance are a snapshot of a time and place.
Jackie Chau’s set offers a pastiche of cultural signifiers—beaded entryway, paper screen divider and a striking ink wash backdrop depicting a bleak and unforgiving patch of urban exterior. The washed out, irregular pattern on the floor is an intriguing detail, perhaps suggesting encroaching water damage and decay.
Into this cloistered environment, two very real women eventually intrude upon frustrated male fantasy. In the first act, we meet Madame Wu (Renée Wong), the young wife of an abusive older man, whose presence suddenly charges the air in the room and throws the men, and their attraction, into timid relief. This was the one time when there seemed to be something urgent, unspoken yet palpable, occurring on stage. The interaction is vital in its sweet and clumsy honesty, and is a good set-up for the tragedy the occurs later.
The second act sees Kamino barge in as Queenie, an elderly yet vivacious prostitute (a role she originated almost forty years ago). Despite the weathered flesh and hobbled gait, her confidence and vigour are relentless and endearing. Her bound feet become a point of contention amongst the men—most finding it a grotesque atrocity, but with Grandad in particular vehemently invested in the patriarchal tradition it represents. The honour that Kung later bestows upon her is genuinely affecting and Koomsatira’s gentle passion here touched me.
Huang’s backstory about an arranged marriage with a reluctant child bride in a small village is another lovely bit of writing and Hu conveys the pathos well. Men sorting through their cultural baggage to acknowledge women’s full humanity or, by contrast, exhibiting a desperate and willful lack of empathy—this is one of the strongest themes in Kam’s play, though I still find the overall execution rather clunky.
As Canadiana, Bachelor Man offers a valuable perspective on our history. Despite great potential as a piece of theatre, it is uneven and largely unconvincing.
Bachelor Man
September 2 to 14, 2025
Tarragon Theatre Mainspace
(30 Bridgeman Ave)
1 hour, 45 minutes (including intermission)
Ziye Hu, Robert Lee, George Chiang, and Renée Wong in Bachelor Man | Photo by Lyon Smith