Pageant contestants in dazzling ballgowns and glittery makeup parade around the stage, showing off their sunny smiles, beautiful voices and favorite ways to eat human flesh.
"The Great Filipino American ASWANG Pageant" debuts these glamorous monsters at Old Dominion University on Thursday.
Playwright Kat Stevens said the aswang, a shape-shifting creature in Filipino folklore, is often used as a catchall for disasters and misfortunes. The understanding of the monster varies across Filipino culture, but Stevens said that, in general, the aswang is “this supernatural force that’s just after you.”
The pageant is hidden under the guise of a nursing convention, but really, it’s a competition for the monsters to show their danger, mischief and appetites. A journalist investigating the aswang infiltrates the event to discover that not all is as it seems.
The production is a collaboration between ROŪGE: Theater Reinvented and Old Dominion University Theatre. Many of the collaborators are alumni and many of the actors come from The Filipino American Student Association of ODU.
It’s something creative lead Philip Odango described as “ 'RuPaul’s Drag Race' meets 'The X-Files' meets 'Crazy Rich Asians.' ”
“We’re all intrigued by what’s in the dark,” said Rouge producer Patrick Mullins. Though the play is “funny and campy ... it’s real stuff.”
Mullins said the aswang are vehicles to look at assimilation, the idea of “passing” and celebrating one’s unique culture.
Stevens, whose family is from Manila, the capital of the Philippines, has always been interested in folklore and horror writing. However, this process provided her with an opportunity to tie together her interests, her experience as a Filipino-American and the information she learned during the research stage of the project.
Stevens said many of the details, such as the beauty pageant and the nursing convention — both of which Stevens called “very Filipino” — are a tongue-in-cheek nod to her culture. But the story speaks to something deeper.
“I think a lot of Filipino-Americans feel ‘not Filipino enough’.”
These feelings can be influenced by not speaking Tagalog, having never lived in or visited the Philippines or not being raised in a Filipino community.
“I felt that that was kind of a good analogy for beauty pageants, because beauty pageants also have a lot of unspoken or spoken qualifiers. You have to look a certain way, you have to speak a certain way, you have to act a certain way, you have to have a certain kind of background to be successful in the pageant scene.”
The experience, she said, can be universal.
“Everyone, I think, at some point in their lives kind of feels like an outsider in their own group …The human experience is an awkward experience.”
But Stevens said the play and Filipino culture “is accessible to everybody.”
She said that even the concept of the aswang has gone somewhat mainstream, appearing in popular TV shows such as "Supernatural," and said it has been increasingly “absorbed in the greater Western collective.”
Stevens and other collaborators, including artist Maya Pagtakhan, led what became the Oral History collection initiative of Hampton Roads’ large Filipino community. Pagtakhan asked interviewees what they knew about aswang growing up, what experiences were attributed to the aswang and what they considered the aswang to be.
The team found that older generations, especially those who lived in the Philippines, were more connected to the folklore, where, according to Stevens, “it’s spoken in a little bit more of a hushed tone.”
Pagtakhan asked to speak with the parents, aunties and grandparents of the interviewees. These stories influenced the play’s script and will be displayed in the lobby.
“You can kind of interact with the real aswang legends before you go in to see our glamorized version of it.”
"The Great Filipino American ASWANG Pageant" opens Thursday at University Theatre during Old Dominion University’s Literary Festival. Opening night includes a Filipino market and conversation following the performance. Additional performances, including a sensory-inclusive one, are Oct. 16-19. Visit www.rougeva.org for tickets and more information.
The production received a grant from the Virginia Humanities at WHRO. The Virginia Humanities does not participate in the editorial decisions of WHRO News.