D I R E C T O R S’ S T A T E M E N T

Birthday Dinner was largely informed by the volatile nature of our relationships with some of our most beloved family members. It was partially shaped by the six years wherein we looked after Hae Ji’s grandparents as they developed Alzheimer’s, as well as the delicate balancing acts that we perform that we perform for the sake of our relationships.

During the years that we witnessed Hae Ji’s grandparents develop Alzheimer’s disease, dementia has taken them away over and over again. This cyclical process has made grief, memory, and death itself all the less linear. Some days, it is as if Hae Ji’s grandparents have been long gone and all that’s left are two strangers in familiar bodies. On other days, hope returns on the rare occasions when they engage in profound conversations as they used to, only to have it instantly crushed as soon as they reveal their minds are in another time and place. At times, that glimmer of hope is often worse. While we desperately long for more time with them, it holds us captive to an idea of something that will never come back and we find ourselves unable to move forward, trapped in a rollercoaster that we can’t step out of.

This struggle and denial that many of us encounter in the face of change may also be found in our everyday relationships as exemplified by Kevin’s relationship with his mother, who struggles to accept versions of her son that no longer align with the image she still has of her “niño.” For as much love as he and his mother have for each other, this has fomented mutual resentments that inevitably burst like a boil when the balance is disrupted. This tension raises the question of whether roleplaying as a happy family comes at the cost of forging a meaningful connection.

Birthday Dinner utilizes the visual language of psychodrama to explore cycles of death and rebirth, the masks we wear to protect ourselves and others, and the painful lengths we go to maintain connections with those we love.

- Hae Ji Cho & Kevin Alcántar