Interview with Phil Wong
Cutting Ball sits down with actor Phil Wong to discuss revisioning the classic play Miss Julie in the world premiere of Megan Cohen’s Free For All.
2019 \ SEPTEMBER 1, 2019 by Estela Hernandez
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Since you and John are both cooks, what’s one of your favorite dishes to make?
Eggs. Literally eggs, which works out [because John prepares eggs onstage in Free For All]. I love that eggs are so versatile. You can do everything with them: you can bread things with them, you can boil them, you can fry them, they’re a lovely addition to fried rice.
Oh! And omelettes, I went to France and had the best omelette in the world. It had, like, no brown spots — just perfectly yellow and fluffy and it had one ingredient: mushrooms. And I’m like, “before I die, I’m going to learn how to make this omelette.”
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Seeing that Free For All is set in San Francisco, where is one of your favorite places in the city?
Inside the Embarcadero Center — I don’t even know if its still there anymore — but my family used to go to this Chinese restaurant on the 3rd Floor, or something like that. I believe it is Embarcadero Center West if my San Francisco geography is correct. I remember, as a kid, this giant flower that had neon lights — I think it was a lotus floor — big neon lights, with Christmas lights and shit around it, and it was all sparkly. And I remember you could go down, like down the levels of halls, and I would just run up and down those before and after our meals. Even though I haven’t gone there in forever, I think that is my favorite place. Just for memories.
If I’m talking about now, definitely would be the Presidio. And also the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival plays down there all the time, and that’s where I work — I’m a Resident Artist. Its very windy, which sometimes makes it hard to perform. It’s like rockstar Shakespeare though — like 2500 people there — and you’re over there yelling, “To be or not to be!”
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What is one of your favorite things about your character, John?
I don’t know if it’s a favorite thing — more so something I identify with — which is he thinks he has a plan. I really identify with thinking you might have a plan, and then that plan completely going to shit, and immediately being completely flustered, and then finding a new course and riding that course. In life, something terrible happens, course correction, keep going, something else happens, course correction. And I feel like I live my life in those moments of course corrections.
What’s the thing you like least about your character?
He’s a total Soft Boy. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of a Soft Boy, it is a male who uses sympathy for his gain. It’s someone who uses people’s ability to feel sorry for him against those people, to manipulate them. And, to be real, I identify with that too. I’ve done those things in the past, I’ve absolutely been a Soft Boy. It’s not a healthy thing but John, I think, tries to use it against Julie — and it doesn’t always work. I don’t think it ever really works.
Why are you excited for people to see Free For All?
I’m excited for people to not know what it’s about. I’m excited for people to think they are going to see Miss Julie and then watch and be, like, “whoa, what is this puppet … skiing … sex happening?!”
I’m excited to share this experimental stuff with people because I feel like not enough people are exposed to it. There’s a lot of bad experimental theater out there where interesting stuff is happening on stage but, in the end, it doesn’t really have consequences. And I really feel like there is something here [in Free For All]. Something that we are still working out, you know. We have the core ideas of what we want the play to be and, as we continue to go, we figure it out.