As a part of the NAC’s summer programming Stage Series, Love You Wrong Time is a hilarious and heartwarming tale that follows two friends looking for love in the big city.
Co-creators Deanna H. Choi and Maddie Bautista provide the perfect setting for a night out with friends, family, or a cheeky first date, in a high-energy, interactive performance.
“The premise of the show if that it’s a story of two young Asian women who are looking for love in the big city, loosely, autobiographically based off of Maddie and myself,” says Choi. “We explore Asian fetishism online, in person, through problematic individuals that we encounter, but there’s a lot of humour and satire in it as well.”
Maddie Bautista and Deanna H. Choi. Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh.
“Ultimately, it’s a story about friendship and celebration of Asian women, of the Asian femme body, of queerness, and a reclamation of our voice,” says Bautista.
Bautista and Choi began writing this play in 2017 in their early 20s. It was a way for both of these artists to fight back against the rise in anti-Asian violence and hate.
However, as they grew, so did the show, and they’ve been able to use this project to respond to events that have happened in real time — like the 2021 Atlanta Spa Shootings.
“We were doing rehearsals and meetings over Zoom at the time, and then Maddie said, during one of them, ‘I think I’d like to take some time to process this grief and write a song about it,’” says Choi. “And that song ultimately ended up in the show in the second half.”
The response from the community has been very supportive and freeing — both for audiences and for the artists.
“Some of my favourite responses have been the cathartic tears from the audience — of course the laughter through tears, and being able to meet all of the Asian audience members who have been to the show and being able to unpack that together after,” says Bautista. “It’s been incredibly rewarding being able to do that.”
Maddie Bautista and Deanna H. Choi. Photo by Erin Brubacher.
The show’s title — Love You Wrong Time — is a tongue-in-check reference to the popular line from Full Metal Jacket “Me love you long time” which is a common derogatory phrase used frequently in contemporary culture.
Choi says she was inspired to title this show using that reference when she was flipping through old editions of Toronto’s NOW Magazine.
“There were a bunch of classified ads at the back. Their back pages had personals featuring a lot of sex workers and ads of that nature, and I just remember reading some of the ones featuring Asian women, and some of them actually used that tagline,” says Choi. “I thought that was so fascinating to be leaning into that trope rather than rejecting it, and so it just became this play on words that I found really interesting.”
Although this show has performed in other cities like Toronto and Kingston, both Choi and Bautista are excited to perform in the nation’s capital.
“We honestly don’t know what to expect. With already four sold out shows for a five-show run, we are incredibly humbled and floored,” says Bautista. “We’re feeling like we’re representing a lot of Asian women so we want to do our best and give everyone out there a show.”
Don’t miss Love You Wrong Time performing at the NAC’s Fourth Stage from Aug. 13-16. You can purchase your tickets online. For more information about the performance, check out the NAC’s website.
