Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. is a tribute to badass Filipino grandmothers

Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. follows Lola Basyang, a tough 90-year-old Filipino woman with dementia who escapes from her care home. As her two grandchildren set out to find her, they come across her unfinished memoir, which details her childhood in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation.

When Padilla talked to her grandmothers for inspiration while writing the play, she uncovered stories from their past, which not only taught her about her family, but also encouraged her to learn more about her native country.

"Both of them actually opened up to me and let me know that they were children during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines," Padilla said. "When I wanted to ask more about their experiences, both of their reactions was more leaning towards, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about it,' you know? So I felt like, 'Oh, this is probably, like, a sensitive topic for them.' But also, because I was so intrigued … this actually urged me to do my research [on] the Japanese occupation."

Padilla grew up in the Philippines and studied dentistry. When she moved to Vancouver at 23 and had to rebuild her life from scratch, she decided to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an actress and writer. 

She worked as an assistant to a film producer and acted in a few community theatre productions. She started to take playwriting seriously when she enrolled in Langara College's theatre training program, Studio 58.

It was there that Grandma. Gangsta. Guerrilla. started to take shape as a 15-minute solo project. She wanted to challenge herself by including skills outside of her usual practice, like rapping and fight choreography and playing a sassy old woman — a role she couldn't see herself being cast in otherwise.

As Padilla dug into the history of the Philippines during the Second World War, she was fascinated by the guerrilla resistance movement of the 1940s and the stories of "comfort women" — who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese military forces — and incorporated these topics into the play.

"The part about their stories that also resonated with me is the fact that a lot of them are still waiting for the justice that they feel is never going to come," she said. "And at this point, if there's only about 40 comfort women that are left in the Philippines, I just don't really want their stories to die as well and be forgotten."

Although the stories are tragic, Padilla was drawn to the resilience of these women. For her, this is where the gang element of the story comes into play, since she associates it with being tough and "doing your best to survive."

In spite of that heavy historical context, Padilla intentionally made the play a comedy. She loves The Golden Girls and Kung Fu Hustle — anything that features tough, determined women who can thrive in any situation. 

She says racialized artists are often associated with work that draws on trauma, so she wanted to find balance and allow her characters to be seen for more than just the tragic events they've lived through.

"We should not be reducing people to the horrible experiences because we are so much more than that," Padilla said. "We are people who are multi-faceted. We are people who laugh at random gossip.… We are people who are daughters, who are mothers, who get annoyed by our siblings.…

"It's kind of sad when people, again, just really put people in boxes as, like, 'Oh, you're a comfort woman. You were the girl who experienced this or you were the girl who experienced that.' But we are so much more than that."

She also credits her time in the Kathara Society Filipino Indigenous dance ensemble with sparking her interest in the colonial history of the Philippines. The troupe collaborated with Butterflies in Spirit, Indigenous performers raising awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

"What I love about [Kathara] is that they were the ones who essentially taught me a little bit about te colonial history of Canada," Padilla said. "Sometimes we need to move to a different place in order for us to be able to … really look back objectively on our history as a Filipino people. So, yeah, I think that was a big influence on my part." 

Padilla says when you get down to it, the play is about family and finding the balance between honouring the sacrifices your ancestors made to get you here and living your own life.

"It's about … being able to put that healthy boundary of like, 'You know what? I'm going to honour my ancestors by living bigger and happier lives than the lives that they have experienced,'" she said.

Grandma. Gangsta. Guerilla runs from Feb. 13-16 at The Presentation House Theatre (333 Chesterfield Ave.) in North Vancouver, B.C.