Sara Porkalob’s “Dragon Mama” may be a one-person show, but she’s playing 24 characters onstage. How does one manage that?
“With a lot of practice,” said Porkalob, who’s bringing the second in her “Dragon Trilogy” (after “Dragon Lady” and prior to the still-in-development “Dragon Baby”) to Diversionary Theatre in University Heights. Now in previews, “Dragon Mama” opens Sept. 23. Seattle-based Andrew Russell is directing.
This multi-character performance “is first and foremost a physical skill,” said Porkalob. “I think of myself as an athlete of sorts. I’m practicing the physicality of this show over and over until it’s muscle memory.”
Porkalob’s “Dragon Mama” is her own Filipino-American mother Maria, whose internal and external journey takes her from Bremerton, Wash., on Puget Sound to Alaska. “It is an epic odyssey wrapped up in a queer awakening of a young brown woman with radical hopes and dreams,” said Porkalob about the core of the play.
She has been performing “Dragon Mama” since its 2019 premiere at American Repertory Theatre at Harvard University but is continually changing and evolving the script.
“This is a new draft,” she said, “thanks to being here in San Diego. My collaborator Andrew Russell and I have been able to figure out some problems with the script that have been in the back of our minds. I know that we’ve been able to do that because we’re at this theater working with this team.”
“Dragon Lady,” the initial play in Porkalob’s trilogy, focused on her immigrant grandmother, also named Maria. Debuting as a two-act cabaret piece at Intiman Theatre in Seattle in 2017, “Dragon Lady” featured a cameo by her grandmother.
“In the first couple of years of ‘Dragon Lady’ I wrote and performed more than 13 versions of the play,” Sara recalled. “In doing that it taught me to be scrappy and showed me how to be a businesswoman. I could look at my creative work with compassion and understanding and look at my craft through the lens of business.”
In part two of the trilogy, “Dragon Mama,” Sara’s mother Maria is navigating her sexuality while being surrogate mother to her four siblings. The story spans more than 20 years of her life. It also features an R&B soundtrack of songs from the ‘80s and ‘90s.
“The aural, musical landscape of my life has been a part of my upbringing,” said Sara. “For me, music in this show is really operating as my mother’s internal landscape. It’s like the beating of her heart, her spirit. It’s also another character in the show.”
She said that her family members were “nervous” when she began performing her trilogy, “but we have love and affection and integrity in this group. They grew up never thinking that their stories would have such an impact and that other people would feel universally connected.”
While she’s in San Diego performing “Dragon Mama,” Porkalob said she’ll be working on a 30-minute experimental version of what she hopes eventually will be a full two-act musical with a cast of 12 that tells her own story: “Dragon Baby.”
‘Dragon Mama’
When: Now in previews through Sept. 22. Opens Sept. 23 and runs through Oct. 8. Showtimes, 7 p.m. Thursdays. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. 2 p.m. Sundays
Where: Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd., University Heights
Tickets: $20-$65
Phone: (619) 220-0097
Online: diversionary.org
Coddon is a freelance writer.