A Filipino-Canadian tale

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This article was published 23/10/2018 (2826 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg artist hopes an immigration tale shows her community that acting can be pursued as a career, not only as a hobby.

Dutchess Cayetano recently co-starred in Prairie Theatre Exchange’s production of Prairie Nurse. 

Cayetano, 22, played Puring, a traditional and religious Filipino nurse who works at a hospital in a Saskatchewan small town. Her partner Stephanie Sy plays Penny, another Filipino nurse who is a feisty Filipino. Both nurses arrived in Canada with a wave of immigrants from the Philippines in the 1960s.

“It’s an absolute joy, and I’ve been very blessed to be able to work with such an amazing creative team and production team.”

The play is playwright Marie Beath Badian’s love letter to her mother, who also immigrated from the Philippines to become a nurse in rural Saskatchewan.

Because of Puring and Penny’s physical resemblance, Canadians couldn’t tell them apart, including a lab technician and local hockey player who falls in love with one of the nurses. The love affair turns the play into a farcical romantic comedy based on the mistakes people would make when trying to identify the two nurses.

Cayetano said she had a great time playing Puring.

“It’s such a funny, great play, to be able to tell the community. I think it’s very important for the Filipino community. It’s just great to be able to tell our story and our families’ stories because there are a lot of Filipino nurses immigrating to Canada.”

Aside from laughs, the play also explores a specific topic of Canadian history, Expo 67: Canada Welcomes the World, an event held in Montreal that revealed to the world the social and economic transformations during Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. At the same time, it reflects on today’s political and cultural climates, showing people that welcoming newcomers wasn’t always difficult.

“The play really takes place in this moment,” director Ardith Boxall said in a release. “Even with the colonial associations that the centennial now holds for us as Canadians as we try to work through our history, it is a remarkable time capsule to open up — an era of change and hopefulness, of learning and welcoming people from around the world. And that story belongs to many Canadian citizens.”

Cayetano added she is very similar to her character.

“Puring is very conservative, and I grew up very conservative as well, a very traditional Filipino and very religious. I was born at the Philippines, so I came to Canada with that mindset already,” she continued.

“It was nice to get a little touch of that during the play and being able to play that role so that the audience can understand what Puring is all about and what her personality is and I think that the audience could connect with that because they know that is a traditional Filipino, status-quo stereotype.”

Cayetano, who began acting when she was seven years old, said there aren’t a lot of Filipino actors in Winnipeg and the fact that the play features two Filipino characters meant a lot to her. 

She said acting has allowed her to put a side of herself out that she probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

“I like being in a whole different world, to be a different character and to put another side of myself out there that I don’t get to do often, so it gives me a lot of joy to be able to be as silly and as vulnerable and vocal as possible,” she added.

“I hope that the community, the Filipino community, can know that being an actor is a career and not just a hobby.”

The play ran until Oct. 21 at PTE.