CHERISH
Directed by Trevor Schmidt. Written by Ken Duncum. Starring Nadien Chu, Sue Huff, Brad Loucks, Richard Meen. May2-11. The Third Space (11516-103 St). Tickets available through Northern Light Theatre (471-1586) or TIX on the Square (420-1757/tixonthesquare.ca).

When aspiring actor Nadien Chu showed up at her callback audition to get into the University of Alberta’s drama program, the department’s associate chair, Kim McCaw, took her aside and asked her if she really thought she was up to it.

He wasn’t worried about her acting ability; no, he was simply wondering how a single mother of two young children could possibly take on a workload that many students had trouble handling even without the distraction of raising a family. 

“I told him, ‘Yes! Absolutely!’” Chu recalls, laughing at her own blind self-confidence. “And at the time I was sure I could do it! I really was! People ask me how I managed it, and even just a couple of years later, I have to say I have no idea. When I think of the work I did and the hours I kept—from nine in the morning until 11 at night—and all the papers I had to write and getting up at five to do the laundry...  It was truly crazy.

“But [studying acting] was something I had always wanted to do,” she continues, “and never had the courage to pursue. But I knew I wouldn’t have another chance in my life to do it. I hit 30 and I knew it was now or never. And the thought of being 80 and not having allowed myself to do it was just too much to bear.”

Like so many new actors, Chu is making her first appearance in a mainstage, main-season production thanks to Northern Light Theatre and artistic director Trevor Schmidt. She’s playing Jess, the pivotal role in Cherish, a drama by New Zealand playwright Ken Duncum. The play revolves around two gay couples: Jess and Maeve, and Tom and William. Tom has fathered children by both Jess and Maeve, and Jess is carrying a third. An informal understanding exists that Jess will give up the child to Tom and William for them to raise themselves—but when she abruptly decides to renege on the deal, she sets in motion a painful legal battle that strains both relationships to the breaking point. 

“I think one of the things that was important to Trevor when he cast me,” Chu says, “is that I’m a mother. He said as much, actually. But you know, it’s not a type of character I’ve ever played before, or even a character I have much in common with. I just find it very interesting how confused she is, how she acts in this passive-aggressive way. She does so many intolerable, selfish things, she breaks promises to a lot of people—and of course, I have to love her! She’s my character, right? And I have to defend her! And what I love is how, within this very emotionally fraught experience, Jess has her first true upsurgence of self. I don’t think you necessarily become a woman when you have a child; I know that from my own experience, it’s only when I’ve been through loss that I’ve come to understand who I really am.”

So were Schmidt’s instincts correct, then? Does an actor who’s been a parent bring anything to a role that someone who’s never had kids can’t simply... you know, fake just as easily? “No, it’s true,” Chu says. “This is just me, but I think that before I had children, I used to see things in black and white, but when my son Liam was born, everything was colour.” 

She’s not talking about shadings of morality, either, of the kind that Cherish spends so much time exploring. She literally means colour. “Colour, colour, colour,” Chu says. “I really did see the world in a completely different way. I know how that sounds, but it’s true. It’s like I had glasses on that were kind of foggy, and then I took them off and suddenly everything was colourful and beautiful.”