The play follows playwright Karter Masuhara as they attempt to hold imagined conversations with their two grandmothers – one Japanese, one French-Canadian – in their mother tongues.

The play, Masuhara said, was born from them hitting a road block attempting to learn Japanese themselves.

What could’ve been

“One of the big factors that held me back was everyone saying I should be able to talk to my Japanese grandmother – my Obaachan – to help learn it,” said Masuhara. “But due to previous experiences of my Obaachan not respecting my gender identity [I] felt like I couldn’t do that.”

According to Masuhara, that led them to ponder how their French-Canadian grandmother, who passed away when they were young, would handle their coming out and how they would introduce themselves to her in French. As a result, the play came together as a series of “what-if” scenarios featuring the two languages, with June Fukumura and Amélia Simmard recording lines in the respective languages.

Outside of Fukumura and Simmard’s voice work, however, the play is a one-person work, with Masuhara playing both themselves and their two grandmothers – a decision they said made sense for such a personal piece being performed for the first time.

“I’m quite nervous,” said Masuhara. “But also it’s a challenge that I wanted to set for myself so I’m excited to see how it will all play out.”

Crossing borders

While the play explores the universal theme of finding connection across languages, the focus on how gender is presented in spoken language and how queerness fits within different languages – specifically Japanese and French – was especially important to Masuhara.

“Both languages have different ways of gendering people and rules about how that is spoken and written,” said Masuhara. “So adding that queering element to the piece was very important to explore especially as it’s an important piece of my own identity.

Learning to understand

Masuhara hopes their work will resonate with anyone who has struggled with learning a language or understanding the mother tongue of someone close to them.

“Every time I have brought up the subject matter of the piece, the person I’m sharing it with has their own story that has to do with language and family,” said Masuhara. “And I have really enjoyed that sense of community sharing. I’m hoping that sense of connection will keep on being generated by those who can see the whole piece put together.”

With this piece being about creating connection and understanding, Masuhara says they hope it inspires people to “show grace” to those who don’t understand something “fundamental to one’s own life” – but also to themselves.

“It is about learning, and growing, and hope, all things that are important to have in these uncertain times,” said Masuhara. “Through writing and creating this piece I also had to come to the acceptance of my language learning as a slow journey, and I have to let go of this idea of perfection. Audiences will also hopefully get that sense for something they’ve been struggling with – be it a language or something else.”

For more information visit: www.placedesarts.ca/events/do-you-understand-me-now-guest-curated-by-karter-masuhara