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[0:05] John Schwab: Hi, John Schwab here, and welcome to episode 172 of the Curtain Call Podcast.

[0:11] John Schwab: Curtain Call is the podcast that takes you deep behind the scenes of the theater world, bringing you in-depth conversations with the storymakers that are shaping the future of theater.

[0:20] John Schwab: We pull back the curtain to reveal the stories behind the stories and give you a glimpse into the backstage world like no other podcast does.

[0:27] John Schwab: Now, this week, a warning.

[0:29] John Schwab: It is impossible for me to do this week’s show without swearing, so this isn't one for the office or in front of the kids.

[0:36] John Schwab: You'll understand why in about 10 seconds.

[0:39] John Schwab: You've been warned.

[0:40] John Schwab: This week I'm chatting with a dear friend of mine, Lourdes Faberes, who you may have seen in Sandman, or The Power, or No Time to Die, or Good Omens, or you know what? I could go on and on.

[0:54] John Schwab: She's an incredible actor. But Lourdes is currently appearing in the untitled Fuck Miss Saigon play at The Young Vic in London.

[1:01] John Schwab: Kimber Lee's hard-hitting but hilarious play is running now until the 4th of November, as the time of recording.

[1:10] John Schwab: The play had its initial run at the Manchester International Festival earlier this year and has garnered great notices since opening last month here in London.

[1:18] John Schwab: Now, this is a play that deals with generational trauma and enforced stereotypes amongst Asian cultures in popular entertainment.

[1:26] John Schwab: From Puccini to Boublil and Schoenberg. Watching this play made me reassess my understanding of what, you know, watching movies, plays, and musicals that I had grown up with and loved, and how I kind of remember them or misremember them as it is.

[1:44] John Schwab: It is a must-see play. It's funny, it's relevant, and it's utterly brilliantly acted and directed.

[1:51] John Schwab: Lourdes plays a few characters in the play, and we sat down at the Young Vic to talk about that, to talk about her journey and landing the part, which is, oh my gosh, I love that story, and the journey of the play itself.

[2:02] John Schwab: Also, how much it means to her and her cast to be able to tell the story every night. Have a listen.

[2:13] Lourdes Faberes: Hi, I'm Lourdes Faberes. I play Rosie and Chocho and a couple of other nameless characters in the untitled Fuck Miss Saigon play.

[2:27] Lourdes Faberes: I love it. You also play stage management. You came out in the gear once, didn't you?

[2:31] John Schwab: I was like, oh my god.

[2:32] Lourdes Faberes: Five seconds. It was amazing. But I thought I'd have fun with it and turn it on its head.

[2:39] Lourdes Faberes: And then I play some Polynesian peasant. But I play her half bit, so I was like, yeah, give me a little, we're like a little Hawaiian smoky smokey.

[2:55] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah. Just to make it different, but also fun. It's wow. Listen, the song about fun. This is a fun play.

[3:02] John Schwab: So, first of all, full disclosure, you and I go back decades.

[3:07] John Schwab: I think it's almost two decades.

[3:09] Lourdes Faberes: It's 2006 or nine.

[3:13] John Schwab: Four?

[3:14] Lourdes Faberes: Four, five.

[3:15] John Schwab: 2005.

[3:15] Lourdes Faberes: And okay, this is a good one.

[3:16] John Schwab: I did push our pushing two decades. But I think I have to say, just so people know.

[3:22] John Schwab: But that doesn't take away from the fact that I fucking loved this play.

[3:30] John Schwab: And people should come and see it. I know I don't always say that. When you know, when you see a friend in a play, you're like, wow, oh how you were you just you did it.

[3:39] John Schwab: Well done. That's an old Billy Connolly trick. I was like, if you go see a friend in a play, and then you don't have anything great to say, you just go, and then you have to meet them afterwards.

[3:50] John Schwab: You have to say it's like you did it again. You guys look like you were having fun up there.

[3:57] Lourdes Faberes: No, so yeah, so you know what I mean. Yeah, the lighting was amazing.

[4:04] John Schwab: So, um, that I did not have that. I told you when we were chatting outside that I listen, people know that I cry at things, but I cry when I'm in touch with my emotions and when something kind of gut punches me.

[4:15] John Schwab: And I had there were a couple of gut punches in this. The journey of this play must have been like you have a we talked about how many characters, but you also have a kick-ass speech that goes on and you just don't want it to end.

[4:30] Lourdes Faberes: Oh, yeah, you know, generally, because everything you're going, I agree, and I don't agree, yes, yeah, no, and you know, you're like, I'm with you, and oh my, but I shouldn't. Oh, she's so wrong.

[4:39] John Schwab: I know.

[4:39] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[4:41] John Schwab: So tell can you tell me like how it was, first of all, you came across this project and when you auditioned, because it's been around a while, hasn't it?

[4:49] Lourdes Faberes: It's been around. I think Kimber Lee, who was a writer, she's Asian American. Right, and I think she had written this, started writing this maybe four years ago, and she'd been workshopping it in various writing retreats or something in upstate New York and whatnot, and then it won the inaugural the first international Bruntwood Prize.

[5:19] Lourdes Faberes: Okay, and it got snapped up very, very quickly by the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and then they partnered with the Young Vic and Headlong and Manchester International Festival.

[5:31] Lourdes Faberes: These are all great names, aren't they? Actually dropping names. It's a great, it's a great partnership because it needed, in a way, it needed all four to kind of come together to bring it to fruition.

[5:43] Lourdes Faberes: But also everyone wanted in on the action because of the play itself.

[5:47] John Schwab: Yeah.

[5:48] Lourdes Faberes: And then I think it was February or late January of this year that they started auditioning.

[5:59] Lourdes Faberes: I didn't know about this play. But a lot of the East Asian, British East Asian community, who are especially like in the know about because I've been doing more film and TV work of the past years.

[6:21] Lourdes Faberes: Everyone was looking for a waiting, wait for it to be cast.

[6:24] Lourdes Faberes: For it to happen, yeah. But also it was like this mythical thing where it's like, does anyone have a copy of the script? Everyone wants to read this, no one has a copy of the script.

[6:34] Lourdes Faberes: Finally, it comes around. And I think every East Asian went up for every part of this.

[6:39] John Schwab: Yeah, yeah.

[6:40] Lourdes Faberes: Um, I then it's really funny because they asked me to prepare two scenes. You know, when they read the whole scene, you do you pick two.

[6:53] Lourdes Faberes: I want the longest scene. I want so so I was like, well, they're essentially only two.

[6:58] John Schwab: Yeah.

[6:58] Lourdes Faberes: The beginning bit, yes, and then and then the longer second part in 2023, and then so I just imagine, oh well, I'll go through like one, two paragraphs of the second one, prepare the first one, yeah.

[7:15] Lourdes Faberes: But I got there and it was such a fun room, you know, Roy Vice, Roy Alexander Vicey, and Kimberley, who was a writer, and Helena Palmer, or CD, or casting director was that.

[7:27] Lourdes Faberes: And then we had such a great time. I did the first scene. We're laughing our heads off.

[7:32] Lourdes Faberes: And then they said, um, okay, what's your second scene? I was like, oh, well, you know, can I do I know the speech is very long.

[7:39] Lourdes Faberes: The other I am I've seen the other women outside waiting, so I know you're probably gonna I'm gonna start it. You cut me off when you want, because I know there's people waiting.

[7:52] Lourdes Faberes: But I have to say, if I can just if you let me go through this the once, yeah, I would be so happy because it this might be my one and only chance of doing this. I just want to play.

[8:01] John Schwab: Amazing.

[8:03] Lourdes Faberes: I just want to play and you know, and I won't and I did, and I walked out of there just I was just like I feel good. It's a good day today of acting.

[8:12] John Schwab: Yeah.

[8:12] Lourdes Faberes: Sometimes, because for me, auditions are not a in room auditions are so rare.

[8:17] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah. And to have that dynamic, and we you know, I was like, I have a I felt good a good afternoon of acting. That's it.

[8:26] Lourdes Faberes: Whether I get it or not, I don't really care. It was just like that was a gift. A nice afternoon.

[8:32] John Schwab: Yeah, and then um, and then yeah, and then it came my way.

[8:37] Lourdes Faberes: And then Did you jump for joy?

[8:40] John Schwab: I did. It was funny because they wanted me to do I did the audition, I think on a Thursday, and then on the Friday, I flew to Portugal because it was my around my birthday, so I had a birthday week in Portugal, and they were saying they called on the Friday, said, could she come back on Monday?

[8:56] Lourdes Faberes: It's like no, I I can't.

[9:01] John Schwab: Yeah.

[9:02] Lourdes Faberes: And they're like, oh no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. We were just more than a little bit. Is it a deal breaker? Is it a deal breaker?

[9:07] John Schwab: You know, but I was just like, I don't know, I can't. Fair enough.

[9:11] Lourdes Faberes: But it's like, oh no, it's okay because they just wanted you to read with other potential Kim's and the other people.

[9:17] John Schwab: I was like, listen, I would love to be there to do the recall, but I can't. I spent too much money, yeah.

[9:27] Lourdes Faberes: Pre-booking all the week. Um anyway, so thankfully enough, I'm very grateful enough it came my way.

[9:35] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, and then we started rehearsing in Manchester last week of May.

[9:40] John Schwab: Yeah.

[9:40] Lourdes Faberes: That we did a run there over the summer, and then we had a five-week break, then we came to London.

[9:47] John Schwab: There are other plays out there we talked about Yellow Face, which is a different, it's specifically about one production of Miss Saigon, you know, with and and and David Henry Hwang has a very specific take on it, yeah.

[10:01] John Schwab: It's quite linear as well.

[10:03] Lourdes Faberes: Absolutely, this narrative but I didn't. This was this was brought my attention to historically going back, you know, you're talking about Puccini, whatever, you know, you're gonna be like what's it?

[10:13] John Schwab: So did yeah, so did you know it was magic?

[10:16] Lourdes Faberes: Do you know hold on something? This is coming together great, yeah.

[10:20] John Schwab: Yeah, well, well, a you read the script and you're laughing out loud, it's like okay, something's good, because when you're just sitting there quietly laughing to yourself, already, okay, this won't be too hard to make good, right?

[10:34] Lourdes Faberes: And then when we were in the room and we were it was on its feet, then I realized, oh, this is really because of the amount of laughter in the room.

[10:44] Lourdes Faberes: At the same time, we were very always, we always had to kind of rein ourselves in. Because it's easy to play this for laughs.

[10:53] Lourdes Faberes: It's easy to be super gaggy and you know, um, you well, you walk a very you can it can actually sound like you're you're pointing out stereotypes or yeah, yeah, yeah.

[11:05] John Schwab: You know, and stylistically as well, because it goes through different styles, it has to honor the whole 1890, you know, the kind of different eras of acting.

[11:16] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, you know, like the kind of Katharine Hepburn style and the M*A*S*H style.

[11:16] John Schwab: M*A*S*H is great that they nailed it.

[11:22] Lourdes Faberes: It was so different. They nailed it, yeah.

[11:23] John Schwab: Um and and all of those, uh which by the way, uh Jennifer Kirby and Tom Weston Jones who played this the kind of the Caucasian characters, they had a mountain to climb, and they were not only are they incredible actors, but they're incredible, incredible people to be um to be so generous and um very invested as well in having those conversations in the rehearsal room because those are tricky conversations, yeah.

[11:54] Lourdes Faberes: Um, when we're exploring the themes, yeah.

[11:57] Lourdes Faberes: Um, but yeah, I really thought as well when I read the this speech, which if you guys come to see it, that it's it's funny when we were rehearsing that it was like there's a lot of well, we don't want to touch it too much, Lloyd's.

[11:57] Lourdes Faberes: We don't want to touch it too much because I think it all comes from the gut.

[12:19] John Schwab: Of course you craft it, yeah.

[12:22] Lourdes Faberes: But for me, that speech is different every night. Because I I think the work in rehearsal is to explore the possibilities.

[12:31] John Schwab: Yeah.

[12:32] Lourdes Faberes: But the work for me personally is that I have to fill up that character with stuff underneath and behind and fill up her life.

[12:40] Lourdes Faberes: And you know, the usual things actors do. They have a biography and like the layers of what she went through, so that when I do speak the things, there's no push in, you know, it needs to seep out.

[12:53] John Schwab: Yeah, yeah.

[12:54] Lourdes Faberes: Because it's kind of a stream of consciousness, this monologue. And it's like a bullet train, it's like a shark, it has to go like that. And if you plan it too much, it sounds planned.

[13:04] John Schwab: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[13:06] Lourdes Faberes: You know, it can sound like a TED talk.

[13:09] John Schwab: Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying.

[13:12] Lourdes Faberes: Well, like that's a thing. Well, there's also okay, there's generational trauma that you don't know exists if you don't, if you've not lived, if you've not seen the trauma in your parents or your grandparents that has the unspoken whatever.

[13:31] John Schwab: Yeah, and you come into um a TED talk where there is no place to hide on stage.

[13:37] Lourdes Faberes: You do it in the round. So you've got you can't be it, it can't be. You know, it is it is um loose, but you're playing to a crowd.

[13:48] John Schwab: There's no way you can't back yourself into a corner.

[13:50] Lourdes Faberes: You are facing someone all the time and not that's incredible. You think of it as a TED talk, but no, no, no.

[13:59] Lourdes Faberes: In terms of in in terms of it's funny because sometimes that's like I was asking Kimber, I was like, Kimber, I feel am I'm am I just am I making sense here? Am I just blathering on?

[14:12] Lourdes Faberes: You know, I’m pushing this so that the pace is up and the energy is, and then, you know, and she's like, "Lords, I wrote that as a showstopper."

[14:23] Lourdes Faberes: Stop the fucking show.

[14:25] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, okay, here we go. Hold this beer. Uh, and now I want to take a short break for a word from our sponsors.

[14:35] John Schwab: Welcome back to this week's episode of the Curtain Call Podcast. When we were talking outside before this, I found you do find yourself agreeing and disagreeing at the same time, which is so clever in the writing.

[14:48] Lourdes Faberes: Oh, it's very Louise's point, and then you go, but no.

[14:53] John Schwab: Yeah.

[14:54] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah. I mean, you get to walk that line every night, Lords.

[14:59] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, and really, there is something about having that breaking that fourth wall, right?

[15:08] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, and then every night it's different because every night I, because I also have before this speech, I do a couple of characters that do not talk.

[15:19] John Schwab: Yes.

[15:20] Lourdes Faberes: So in those times, I'm able to listen to the audience, and you can hear when people are, they're my scene partners.

[15:34] Lourdes Faberes: There's always a scene partner, even when you're doing a monkey.

[15:37] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, and in this instance, you can kind of, I like, I feel when my people, my East Asian people are in the house, right? And so there are sentences there that I know will land, and I'm to a certain extent, I'm saying for them.

[15:57] Lourdes Faberes: Right, but there are many sentences as well that speak of not Asian specific but human-specific things that, like we were talking about, you know, like a crumb from the table is still food, surviving on crumbs. And, you know, I said this and I was lucky enough to have gotten some award. And anyway, in my speech that I said, it's just like, you know, for so long we have contented ourselves with crumbs and convinced ourselves that they are the full loaf, yeah, in order to keep going. And so much of that is not just the experience of East Asians, but everyone in many ways in life, not just being an actor, but in anyone wanting to, it's the shut up and be grateful thing that you go, what?

[16:20] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, yeah. That when the gratitude becomes a kind of servitude, yeah, like I've always had a kind of question in my head of a tension between the word, oh, I deserve and I believe. It's like that's a generational thing, it's like you don't deserve it, you know, deserving what, deserving what? Yeah, but it's become now for me like, oh well, it's not about what one deserves, it's just like what do I believe in?

[17:16] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, and so much of this play as well tries to break out of what other people have imposed on you, in terms of where one needs to be and what your place is in the story of other people's narratives. So anyway, I love it.

[17:44] John Schwab: Yeah.

[17:46] Lourdes Faberes: That got a little deep.

[17:47] John Schwab: We were still talking about, I mean, listen, I think it's important. I did want to ask how important you see this piece adding to the conversation that is the whole thing about opening up to different experiences for people that look like me, with, you know, a white male.

[18:10] Lourdes Faberes: Um, listen, you know, I have never, I kind of look and I don't want to get political, but I see such divisiveness in the world, and you know, and God, and we came out of the pandemic and we were seeing things like George Floyd and we were seeing hate crimes spit really bad on African Americans and black people and Asian culture. There just was like, you know, how important is this that adds to this to listen, guys? Just can you just pay attention for an hour and 45 minutes and see life a little bit different? See how you have said this must be what we are told to portray our story as.

[18:47] Lourdes Faberes: I found it just, I kind of was getting challenged going, oh my God, I'm never gonna be able to watch South Pacific in the same way.

[18:54] John Schwab: Yeah, or The King and I, or whatever.

[18:56] Lourdes Faberes: You know, I'm like, yeah, yeah. Oh my God, of course. Like I literally was going, ah, I know, I know, and I loved like, uh, not South Pacific. I deplore, I abhor, I, yeah, despise South Pacific because of many things.

[19:19] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, but for me, what is important? And Miss Saigon. Like, it's, but for me, what is important, what hit home with me with this is that, um, A, that it does make people, all these things that we have watched and absorbed and thought of as great entertainment for years and years. And they are entertaining. Um, but the price that it incrementally asks people like me to pay.

[19:41] John Schwab: Yeah.

[19:53] Lourdes Faberes: In that if we continue being, if we continue to give to the world stories that are very, very limited and are told by people who have not, who do not know this experience. You know, the popularity of, you know, Puccini, Rodger and Hammerstein, you know, all these people, the people who made Miss Saigon and wrote all these, they're white. They're white men, old men.

[20:23] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah. Um, and so I think a lot of this is then taking back ownership of our story. And at the same time, what this production and the working of it has proved to me is the beauty of the allyship in the sense that there are six of us here. There's a black actress, two Caucasians, three of us Southeast Asians were directed by a black director or writer is Asian American. The sim, you know, the way we worked has proved to me the beauty of accepting each other. We're telling this story to break open the narrative that has been told of many years and hopefully make people realize that there is a price to pay. However, for me, yeah, the beauty is that my God, if we all, if we only all just work together, yeah, yeah, look at the good things that, you know, there's a little magic that comes out because it sounds, it just sounds so glib and twee, but it's fucking true.

Yeah, it is really, it's really simple. It's really simple to go, okay, I see you, yeah, I can, I'm listening, yeah, it's great. Yeah, and it also makes for different things in the pot, yeah, you know, like we've been having the same dish for years and thought, yeah, yeah, that's good, but actually if we put everyone else's and accept that actually if you mix that up with that, something might, might, you know, come up that's even better. I think I normally, you know, I'd normally just try and find some sort of more complex argument to kind of throw into that. It's not just that simple.

[22:16] Lourdes Faberes: Yeah, simple. What I like about this play as well is because it keeps, it kind of lulls you into laughing about things and then you realize, oh my God, it's racist. I've been laughing at racist stuff all my life. This is, this is it. I listen, I still to this day, so this play, it's Clark, right? Tom plays the character Clark who doesn't, you know, look, I'm not spoiling it, you'll get it. He speaks in Japanese or Polynesian, different Asian words, wherever he, for whichever place he is. So he starts out in Japanese, but he's not speaking Japanese, but he, and you're going, it's, I should I be laughing at this?

[22:58] John Schwab: Yeah, yeah.

[22:58] Lourdes Faberes: It's fun, it's funny.

[22:59] John Schwab: It's funny.

[23:00] Lourdes Faberes: It's so funny. And then you realize like, oh, I don't know. But I think you laugh at the absurdity of it and kind of go, actually, you know, 50, 60 years ago, this is how almost that they're, you know, happy, happy talking, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it is basically the same thing that we're pointing out here.

[23:25] John Schwab: Oh my gosh.

[23:26] Lourdes Faberes: And you know, yeah, it's like South Pacific for me is like, you know, oh yeah, it's a history, it's, it's, we're teaching a lesson about racism, you know, like because the lead characters are, you know, oh, uh, falls in love with someone, finds out that he has mixed race kids and falls out of love for him, and then, and then it she realizes, um, I've been bad about that, so let me overcome that. So fair enough, you have that thing, but don't make us pay for that, yeah. Or at the very least, don't silence us and be happy happy talk. Do you mean who does happy happy fucking talk?

[24:08] John Schwab: Um, anyway, you do when you're in therapy at the end of your therapy session, yeah.

[24:13] Lourdes Faberes: Um, but yeah, but I think, um, but also the fact that it is Kimba is very clever in that you must always be entertaining, yeah. That it needs, that's how she sucker punches you, it's because she relaxes you with something funny and then puts out some sharp truth, yeah. And then you go, oh, and then it recycles. And you, the great thing is you, it recycles. You think maybe this time it'll work out. It'll work out. Yeah, there'll be a different ending. There'll be a bit more compassion. There will be a different light being shone.

[24:57] John Schwab: Yeah.

[24:58] Lourdes Faberes: No.

[24:59] John Schwab: No.

[24:59] Lourdes Faberes: Oh my God.

[25:00] John Schwab: Okay.

[25:01] Lourdes Faberes: We've rambled. I've rambled.

[25:02] John Schwab: I've, I've um, so have I.

[25:04] Lourdes Faberes: Oh my God.

[25:05] John Schwab: No, it's great.

[25:06] Lourdes Faberes: Uh, it's really good. Why could I talk to you for catching up with you've been raising?

[25:10] John Schwab: I could talk to you forever. Um, and I think maybe we've covered this, but I do always ask if you could just say what would be your ideal? Somebody comes to the show, they don't know what they're saying, and they leave having been enlightened, or maybe not, you know, it's, uh, you know, what would you like people to take away from the untitled fucking cycle play?

[25:32] Lourdes Faberes: I think what I want people to take away is, is from an industry point of view. My takeaway is that I hope you guys give us more space to take up, well, to take up space because we can do this, you know, because we've waited decades to be in a meaningful theater with a meaningful story that isn't just about poverty porn. Yeah, you know, that has something to say, and to have, you know, and not have the fight be so uphill. Yeah, in terms of people walking out of this, I just want them to, to um, to have the effect that it had on you, which is that you are moved enough to kind of explore more or question your own kind of things that you've accepted for so long.

[26:24] Lourdes Faberes: Because that is a daily awakening for me, too. You know, doing this play every day, it has to, it needs a kind of, it's not a, oh, flashes of inspiration kind of acting. It is a daily kind of fidelity to the truth that you have to play every day, you know. Um, and I want people to be moved more than they are impressed. You can watch many things that are impressive, but you're not moved. I'd rather they be moved. Evil can evil jump me the Grand Canyon, you know. Impressive. But was I moved?

[27:01] John Schwab: Lords, you are amazing.

[27:03] Lourdes Faberes: Oh, thank you for having me, John. And have a great rest of the run, and please pass on my love to the cast and congratulations on great notices and everything else.

[27:13] Lourdes Faberes: Thank you so much.

[27:14] John Schwab: Thanks for having me. Lourdes Faberes there, currently in the untitled Fuck Miss Saigon play running at the Young Vic until November 4th. I will put links as to where to get tickets in the show notes. Before I go, I'd just like to say a quick thank you to the press team at the Young Vic for making this chat possible and to Lourdes for being such an amazing guest.

[27:36] John Schwab: Just a quick reminder to say that if you like this episode or indeed any of our episodes of the Curtain Call Podcast, please go to whichever streaming platform you use and leave us a rating and review. It does help others like you find this podcast.

[27:50] John Schwab: If you want to reach out to me personally, you can find me on all the socials at John Schwab. Untitled Fuck Miss Saigon play is at the Young Vic Theater until 4th of November. Co-produced by Royal Exchange Theater, Factory International from Manchester International Festival, Young Vic Theater, and Headlong. Visit YoungVic.org for more details.

[28:10] John Schwab: Thank you for listening. Speak soon and stay safe. Bye.