Winston Kam’s Bachelor Man, presented as part of Tarragon Theatre’s Guest Residency, returns to the stage nearly four decades after its 1987 premiere at Theatre Passe Muraille, when it was directed by then-emerging director Peter Hinton-Davis. The revival production, which is the inaugural production of Renaissance Canadian Theatre and is directed by Brenda Kamino with Diana Belshaw, offers a timely re-examination of a landmark Asian Canadian play, reimagined with the benefit of hindsight and renewed urgency.
Set in a Toronto Chinatown teahouse on July 1, 1929, the play unfolds against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1923. This law effectively halted Chinese immigration to Canada and, most devastatingly, prevented wives and families from reuniting with the many men who had come to build the country’s railways. The result was a “bachelor society” that endured for 24 years: a community marked by longing, resilience, and dislocation. Kam’s script, grounded in realism, yet layered with lyricism, captures the starkness of that history while weaving in tender moments and sharp conflict.
The ensemble cast, drawn from Canada’s most seasoned and versatile performers, brings nuance and depth to Kam’s diverse characters. George Chiang anchors the production as John, the imperious teahouse owner who has left his wife in China, and whose pragmatic resilience is tempered by regret and bitterness. Sean Baek, Robert Lee, Oliver Koomsatira, Ziye Hu, and Damon Bradley Jang, round out the group of bachelors with sharp and divergent characterizations. and Renée Wong is their neighbouring café owner’s tentative and demure wife, while Kamino, who appeared in the original production, returns here as both director and cast member – underscoring the intergenerational continuity and necessity of this revival .
Kamino’s direction embraces the play’s ensemble nature, balancing moments of camaraderie with the solitude of men trapped in an imposed bachelorhood. The tally structure of the script – in which longer speeches, conversational exchanges and scenes accumulate, in order to spotlight each man’s unique situation – is inherently static. Kamino translates this potential into a deliberate undercurrent, showing how these men are stuck: not only because of the government’s immigration ban, but also because of their own efforts to cling to traditional attitudes – particularly towards females – in a new country which they cannot leave. In particular, Granddad (Lee) and John embody this tension. Their determination to maintain the patriarchal old guard means that their prejudices spill onto members of their own community, narrowing the possibility of solidarity, even as they lament their isolation.
The production’s design elements subtly reinforce this atmosphere. Jackie Chau’s set evokes the lived-in familiarity of an urban Chinatown teahouse, which is a space of gathering, but also of confinement and separation (the bachelors all sit at different tables). Siobhan Sleath’s lighting and Lyon Smith’s sound design add atmosphere without overstatement, giving the production a quiet gravity that suits its themes. The interplay of music and shadow, combined with moments of Wong’s singing, deepens the mood: together, these elements create an aura of longing, lament and loneliness that mirrors the men’s internal states.
At its heart, Bachelor Man is perhaps less a historical lesson than a meditation on human adaptability in the face of systemic injustice. Though on the surface they share a common struggle, the characters — among them a disabled WWI veteran, a gay man and a mixed-race youth — reflect complexity within the Chinese Canadian community that complicates stereotypes of sameness. The presence of women, including an aged sex worker known as Queenie (Kamino in the same role she debuted nearly 40 years ago), adds further texture, reminding us that even within exclusionary frameworks, connections and relationships persist.
Seen today, the play’s themes of migration, belonging, and resilience resonate strongly. Indeed, they seem particularly pertinent now, as many of the prejudices examined here – like the fear of outsiders, suspicion of difference, and the enforcement of rigid hierarchies – are once again on the rise. In the play, these hierarchies operate on two levels: externally, through Canada’s patently discriminatory laws; and internally, through the patriarchal and generational attitudes that men like John and Granddad impose on their peers. Together, they create a double bind that leaves the characters confined: their loneliness magnified by the exact structures intended to protect tradition and identity.
In this light, Bachelor Man feels less like a period piece than a mirror reflecting the enduring costs of prejudice from without and within. In this production, Renaissance Canadian Theatre offers audiences not just a revival, but a powerful reminder that stories long left in the margins have a surprising amount to show us.
Bachelor Man runs at Tarragon Theatre’s Mainspace until September 14, 2025 Tickets are available at tarragontheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
