You can call him Cockroach, or Roach for short. He's a catnip-smoking city slicker living in the dark corners of our homes. A bard (yes, that one) longs for rest as he contends with his legacy. In their crosshairs lies a boy, caught in their collision of linguistics, longing, and lobsters (who sometimes burp). A unique exploration of survival and the dynamics of language erosion, cockroach (曱甴) is a coming-of-age play about the stories we tell ourselves to comfort, to persevere, to resist, to overcome, and to be.
• Jeff has been named Associate Artistic Director of Tarragon Theatre, Toronto
• Jeff initially set out writing cockroach to consider how Shakespeare in translation (in a multitude of languages) might sound musically before turning his lens inward to consider the relationship between Shakespeare with his mother tongue, Cantonese.
•
Jeff likes coffee, cats, theatre, and his husband very much.
• First produced by Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, in September 2022 You can call him Cockroach, or Roach for short. He's a catnip-smoking city slicker living in the dark corners of our homes. A bard (yes, that one) longs for rest as he contends with his legacy. In their crosshairs lies a boy, caught in their collision of linguistics, longing, and lobsters (who sometimes burp). A unique exploration of survival and the dynamics of language erosion, cockroach (曱甴) is a coming-of-age play about the stories we tell ourselves to comfort, to persevere, to resist, to overcome, and to be.
"Shimmering with rich language [and] colourful characters . . . Cockroach delves deep into a deceptively simple story . . . Ho's text, which is dense and layered, [is] peppered with sharp humour and an idiosyncratic style that leaves lines flying off the stage and bouncing between characters." "Ho has found a powerful and disturbing metaphor for xenophobia and intolerance." "Cockroach is a confident, thoughtful and compelling show that will make you think twice about what (or who) we might be crushing under our feet."
"A vibrant, often-funny examination of what it means to be an immigrant, a playwright, and even a human: as far as I'm concerned, it should be mandatory viewing for Toronto audiences, a play unlike any other this year."
