Crossing Oceans: Testimonial Theatre, Filipina Migrant Labor, Empathy, and Engagement

Abstract

Framed within the geopolitics of empathy, we describe the process of taking a testimonial play, based on verbatim research interview transcripts with Filipina domestic workers, their families, employers, and nanny agents in Vancouver, Canada, to the Philippines to present to audiences there, including to members of domestic workers’ families. Aspects of the script and the staging of the play were reworked to solicit empathy in a context where the challenging experiences of domestic workers in Canada sometimes are not heard—even within families, given the popular image of Canada as a land of opportunity and the perception that Canada is relatively inclusive in terms of labor rights and paths to permanent residency. Interviews with seven family members who attended the play offer some clues to assessing performance as a space for critical, sometimes uncomfortable forms of empathy. Rather than a purely affirming experience, we argue that empathy can lead to a fuller recognition of the suffering on which one’s good life depends and challenge fantasies of the good life, in this case, attainable through migration to Canada.