Description:
Alone, equipped only with anecdotes, Grace breathes life into the two women of her family who have led her to the Australian landscape. The Folding Wife contrasts the iconic imagery of a fierce, impenetrable Australian landscape with that of the resilient Filipina.
Three generations of women shared a goal: to leave the poverty and uncertainty of their homeland for the promises of the First World. Grace is a young Filipina woman laying her family to rest, packing them up in little boxes. There is Clara, the grand matriarch who remembers the opulent Philippines of the Spanish era, who finds comfort in an impeccable breeding. Her daughter Dolores is a disappointment, having given birth to Grace after a scandalous affair.
Writer Paschal Daantos Berry creates a series of narrative fragments drawing on the selected memories of Grace. In the folds and creases of her possessions, in the images and anecdotes about Clara and Dolores, she is able to unravel her own identity.
Presented by Urban Theatre Projects and Anino Shadowplay Collective
Artists
Deborah Pollard: Director
Paschal Daantor: Berry; writer
Valerie Berry: Performer
Datu Arellano and Andrew Cruz, with Anino Shadowplay Collective: Multimedia artists
Neil Simpson; Production manager; lighting designer
Urban Theatre Projects: Producer
Presented by Arts House and Mobile States in association with Next Wave.
The Folding Wife is toured by Performing Lines for Mobile States: Touring Contemporary Performance Australia.
Mobile States is a national touring initiative of the Theatre Board of the Australia Council. It has received support from the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and through the national performing arts touring program, Playing Australia.
Image credit
Heidrun Lohr
