Upon receiving news that her grandmother has fallen into a coma in Taiwan, Leila leaves her home in Canada to return to her birthplace, only to find that she alone can see and interact with Pŏpó’s consciousness outside her comatose body. When Pŏpó pressures Leila to help her spirit move on to the celestial realm of Pure Land Buddhism, Leila must suppress not only her nonbelief in the afterlife and her grief over losing her beloved grandmother but also her anger at Pŏpó’s contradictions and history of violence. 

Written by Lily Chang with the support of a Canada Council for the Arts grant, Leila Roils the Seas is a polyglot, seriocomic, magical realism family drama about the special bond and generational, socio-cultural clash between a Taiwanese-Canadian woman and her Taiwanese grandmother. By incorporating different languages (English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, Sanskrit), commercials, karaoke, nursery songs, Buddhist mantras, Traditional Chinese Medicine, taiji, Chinese opera, and a chicken dance, the play aims to create noise, movement, and imagery in an innovative way to convey the navigation of the impacts of loss (of one’s family, language, culture, homeland) and violence through generations in loud and quiet forms. 

Content Warning: Signs, mentions, and/or suggestions of indentured servitude, abuse, substance abuse, domestic violence, body shaming, slut shaming, death/dying, ageism, child abuse, aggression against animals, and suicide.