REVIEW - Haunting beyond the curtain: seeing ourselves in The Brothers Paranormal
Haunting beyond the curtain: seeing ourselves in The Brothers Paranormal
Posted by
Renato Gandia
The first thing I noticed wasn’t the ghost. It was the faces on stage—Black and Asian—telling a story about haunting, grief, and belonging. Sitting in the dark at Vertigo Theatre, watching The Brothers Paranormal, I realized how rare it still is to see a story like this told by an entire BIPOC cast in Calgary. Before a single jump scare, I already felt the shiver of recognition.
Written by Prince Gomolvilas, a Thai-American playwright, the play begins as a classic ghost story. Two Thai-American brothers are hired by an African American couple who believe their apartment is haunted. What unfolds, though, reaches far beyond supernatural spectacle. The haunting becomes a metaphor for the unseen burdens of migration—the memories, losses, and fractures that follow us no matter how far we travel.
Sitting in the audience, I felt a tug of recognition. The ghosts in the story weren’t just spirits—they were echoes of displacement, of families torn between cultures, of longing for a home that no longer exists. And the people bringing these stories to life looked like me.
A cast that reflects the city we live In
This production gathered a remarkable all-BIPOC ensemble: Daniel Fong as Max, Jamillah Ross as Delia, Ray Strachan as Felix, Carolyn Fe, Aaron Refugio, and Heidi Damayo. The performances were rich, textured, deeply human.
As a Filipino-Canadian, I was especially moved to see so many Filipino artists in the mix. Carolyn Fe’s performance carried emotional gravity, Heidi Damayo was chilling and unforgettable, and Aaron Refugio’s warmth—all carried the subtle weight of diaspora. Ray Strachan, who is of Filipino and African heritage, brought a layered sensitivity to his role.
Behind the curtain, assistant director Kodie Rollan, also Filipino, added another voice from our community to the creative team. It felt like seeing the faces of my own friends and cousins, reflected back—not as background characters, but as the heart of the story.
In a theatre landscape that has often sidelined stories from people of colour, this production was more than representation—it was reclamation.
Haunting as shared experience
Gomolvilas’s script blends horror, humour, and heartbreak, but what struck me most was how the play becomes a conversation between communities. Thai spiritual traditions meet African American histories of loss; immigrant anxieties and inherited traumas intertwine.
At one point, Tasanee (Carolyn Fe) says something that struck me deeply, “Sometimes the dead stay around because the dead need time before moving on … but sometimes the dead stay around because it is the living that needs the time.”
That idea felt like the emotional key to the entire play. The haunting isn’t just about restless spirits—it’s about unfinished love, unresolved grief, the ache of wanting just one more moment. And for those of us shaped by migration, it echoes a familiar truth: sometimes we, too, linger between worlds, caught between what we’ve left behind and what we’ve yet to become.
At several points, I found myself laughing—sharp, nervous bursts of humour breaking the tension—then falling silent as grief rose to the surface. The production reminded me that laughter is often our first language of survival, and that horror can be a vessel for truth.
The power of presence
Seeing Filipino performers embody roles that aren’t defined solely by ethnicity was powerful. They weren’t playing stereotypes; they were complex people—funny, frightened, tender, resilient. Their presence pushed back against the narrow ways our stories are often told.
Representation, I realized again that night, isn’t only about being seen—it’s about being seen in our fullness. It’s about standing on a stage not as tokens or cultural symbols, but as human beings carrying universal stories.
When the ghostly presence emerged—terrifying, yes, but also deeply sad—I thought about the spirits my own family carries: the silence of migration, the ache of separation, the prayers whispered across oceans. The play’s supernatural moments became metaphors for something profoundly real.
A shared haunting
Under director Esther Jun, the production is beautifully balanced. The set, a cramped apartment heavy with memory, becomes a threshold between worlds. The lighting and sound conjure unease, but the true power lies in the performances—the quiet listening, the trembling pauses, the way a line can hang in the air like a held breath.
By the final scene, I wasn’t thinking about ghosts anymore. I was thinking about the hauntings we all live with: the parts of ourselves we’ve buried, the cultures we’ve softened, the griefs we’ve never named.
Walking out of the theatre, I felt both seen and unsettled. The Brothers Paranormal didn’t just entertain—it offered a mirror. It asked: What ghosts do you carry? What histories cling to your bones?
Why It matters
For me, this play was more than a night at the theatre—it was a reminder that our stories belong everywhere. That a Calgary stage can hold Thai rituals, African American grief, and Filipino tenderness all at once. That when we fill a room with BIPOC voices, we don’t just diversify the story—we expand the soul of the art itself.
In a world still wrestling with who gets to be visible, The Brothers Paranormal felt like a promise: that the stage can be a place where all our ghosts, and all our joys, are finally allowed to speak.