<strong>BANANA BOYS the play</strong>: February 23-March 17, 2007 (West Coast Premiere) at Schema : more than ethnic

The thing about bananas is they so easily squish. You can't put them in your backpack without having a pulpy mess after they get pushed and prodded. When you try to eat it, the once stoic banana has become, well, mooshed and rather unappealing. Oh wait, we're talking about definition no.2 of "banana" (although one can argue....): Banana: n. 1. tropical fruit; yellow on the outside, white on the inside 2. Canadian-born Chinese (CBC); yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

Which brings us to BANANA BOYS, a play by Leon Aureus that's based on the acclaimed first novel by Terry Woo. Catch it at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver from February 23-March 17, 2007. The cast of Banana Boys includes: Simon Hayama, Victor Mariano, Parnelli Parnes, Rick Tae and Vincent Tong.

What's it about again? The Banana Boys are five Canadian buddies trying to get through university, find love, and establish themselves. But they're also figuring out what it means to be a "yellow guy" in the Great White North. Trapped by parental obligations and societal expectations, these CBCs are neither fully Chinese nor Canadian. The Toronto Star called the play "...(a) smart and wickedly funny play" which balances the joys of beer and video games with the frustrations of being caught between cultures, being stereotyped in mainstream media and passed over by Asian-Canadian women.

Under the cut: Dates, Tickets, pics, and more...

More:

The Banana Boys play is a Firehall Arts Centre Production with community collaboration from the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (www.vact.ca website).

BANANA BOYS by Leon Aureus
Previews February 23 -27 | Previews Tickets price: $10 ($15 at the door)

Shows – February 28 - March 17
8:00 pm shows Tues - Sun
2:00 shows Sat-Sun only
Ticket prices $12 - $24

Firehall Arts Centre (www.firehallartscentre.ca/events)
280 East Cordova Street, Vancouver

TICKETS: 604.689.0926

Email: firehall@firehallartscentre.ca

* To read the article "Banana Boys Bust Cliches" in The Georgia Straight click www.straight.com.

* Banana Boys is a smart, contemporary and wickedly funny play that breaks down stereotypes and paints a picture of what it is to be an Asian-Canadian male. The story centres on the lives of five regular Asian-Canadian guys in their mid-twenties. We follow the boys through their years at the University of Waterloo as they struggle through issues of identity and self worth. Trapped by parental obligations and societal expectations, these CBC’s are neither fully Chinese nor Canadian. Adapted by Leon Aureus from the critically acclaimed first novel by Terry Woo, this wickedly funny play is directed by Jack Paterson.

Everyone knows a Banana Boy. He’s the beer-swilling I.T. guy bitter at his poor dating prospects with white and Asian women. He’s the suave and ambitious young businessman who works hard and plays harder to get ahead. He’s the quiet engineer with broken dreams of being a hockey star and quiet romantic in hopes for love. He’s the nerdy sexually deprived son of a convenience store owner. Banana Boys are from all walks of life. But how did they get to where they are now? The boys live in a fully wired world of high-speed internet, video interface and MSN Messenger. With the joys of beer, hockey and video games, to the frustrations of being stereotyped in the mainstream media, Banana Boys captures what it means to be a “Yellow Guy” in the Great White North.

The five young men we follow run the gamut of the Asian-Canadian experience:
Rick: the ultra ambitious B.Com ‘player’
Sheldon: the hopeless romantic engineer
Luke: the club crawling psych major
Dave: the cynical woman-hating comp sci. student
Mike: the pre-med hopeful who wants to be a writer.

* Review of the play's run in Toronto HERE.

*TERRY WOO

(This sounds like a personal ad...seriously...but it's simply lifted from his website!) Terry Woo is a Banana Boy. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, he has drifted from Toronto, Seattle, New York and San Francisco. He graduated from the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario with a degree in Systems Design Engineering, and one in Psychology. He enjoys hockey, jazz, baking lasagna, spinning breakbeats and trance breaks, nice beaches, California and imbibing mass quantities of Molson's products.

* LEON AUREUS:

The founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN. A rising young actor, writer and producer, in February 2002, his short film, Friends Like These, which he wrote, directed and produced, premiered and was nominated for Best Canadian Short Film at the Reel World Film Festival. Leon is also a founding member of one of Toronto's fastest rising improv-comedy troupes - Step-Up, with whom he has performed on stage and television on numerous occasions in productions such as Bollywood or Bust and Mission Improv. Check out Fu-Gen website www.fu-gen.org/.