Diversely Together: The Sari-Sali Theater Experience

Interview with Co-directors Keiko Yamaguchi and Ian Segarra

Sari-Sali Portal Cafe is a theatre performance co-produced by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) and Kyoto based theatre group BRDG. The piece was staged in Kinosaki and Kyoto in November 2025, and in Manila from December 6 to 8, 2024. The piece was created based on a motif of a café closely running within its immediate community.

What is Sari-Sali Portal Cafe? Why a portal cafe?

Keiko: Sari-Sali Portal Cafe is a theatre production which is based on the theme of ‘Community Cafe’. The audience can experience being inside an immersive space that feels more like a cafe rather than a theatre with an audience.

In the space we have three different areas, three different worlds: The audience can experience being in a cafe in Japan, a Carinderia in Manila, and someone’s room in Japan.

The stories in our piece are based on real stories from a real community cafe in Japan where I work as a staff member. The cafe is called Hokkori. Hokkori’s community is multicultural – different genders, different nationalities, different generations. A place where anyone can come and gather. We interviewed the staff members of the cafe and based on these interviews, we tried to capture the spirit of each patron and what kind of society they wanted to create.

Ian: It’s a story about people trying to create a sense of community, a sense of place, where people are accepted through the lens of different backgrounds and different cultures.

Keiko: We could have made just a single narrative, a story of a Hokkori in Kyoto or Manila. But since this is a collaboration between two countries, I was more interested in the possibility of travelling between these two countries within the theatre itself. That’s a strong power of theatre, we can transcend space and time with one light fixture or one word.

In real life as well, the Hokkori cafe is a portal for the Filipino community living in Japan. We have a shelf there that’s like a sari-sari store, and experiencing this shelf, it’s like suddenly being transported back to Manila.
Ian: We had the challenge of how to incorporate the stories of the interviews together, so having it set in a portal cafe wherein there is no specific space and time, allows these various stories to happen. Also there’s the idea of putting it in a fictional cafe because we wanted to serve stories, because there’s no place anywhere in the world that serves stories through a cafe. A cafe where the menu is stories.

Why did you choose to name it ‘Sari-Sali’:

Keiko: There’s a shelf in the real Hokkori cafe that looks like a Sari-sari store, which became a symbol for the cafe, especially for the local Filipino community. And then I heard that ‘Sari’ and ‘Sali’ had other meanings in Filipino and I found that interesting.

Ian: I think it’s funny because it was sort of an accident putting the idea of joining ‘Sari’ and ‘Sali’, because the ‘L’ and ‘R’ sound in japanese is similar and sometimes Keiko will be saying ‘Sari-Sari’ and it would sound like ‘Sari-Sali’. We loved the idea of having the people ‘Sali’ or join the community. It’s the nature of Hokkori cafe, where people from different walks of life can join together. 

How did your collaboration come into being?

Keiko: We first met in 2015 in Okinawa, in a festival called Ricca Ricca*Festa, which is a theater festival for young audiences. I was the assistant director and interpreter and Ian was an actor in the production. I became really interested in Ian’s stories, and later went to do a research internship in PETA under the fellowship of Asian Center and Japan Foundation.

Ian: We’ve worked a few times together since then, creating online performances during the pandemic (Hello, 2020. Fureru, 2020). Our online performance “Hello” (2020) was produced by PETA and supported by JFM and we are grateful for that.

What made you decide on creating a multicultural and multilingual production?

Keiko: The real Hokkori Cafe is multicultural and we wanted to share this spirit with everyone. The multilingual aspect came naturally and the best choice for us was to speak in different languages.

Ian: I also find the idea of hearing languages beautiful. Just the idea of different languages and cultures interacting.

Ian: Going back to the idea of a Portal Cafe, it is a space with no boundaries. The idea of having different languages interacting and understanding each other is fascinating. In our cafe a Japanese person can speak to a Filipino in their own language and vice versa with no difficulty relating and connecting with each other.

Keiko: We had different stories and settings. From Mayumi’s cafe, where the staff members communicate in basic Japanese and simple English, to Kaloy’s Karinderya where he speaks in Filipino. The last one is magical, everyone speaks their own language and understands each other. It’s a fantasy but it’s our ideal world of being able to communicate while also being yourself.

What are the challenges of working with different languages and cultures?

Keiko: In reality, there is no magical way of getting over these boundaries. We always talked about translation and interpretation during the process. Our process takes more time than communicating in just one language and really requires patience from everyone. It’s extremely stressful for actors as well, as they need to concentrate a lot. Waiting, understanding, getting lost. Everyone needed to be open to accept the situation.

Ian: It’s inevitable to have that kind of difficulty because you are trying to understand the context behind why and how each person communicates. It’s really about patience, but also trying to be more articulate about your own culture. It’s a sense of discovery. Trying to understand another person while also trying to understand yourself.

With the three main characters (Ayaka, Kaloy, and Mayumi) each one embodied their own themes such as acceptance, activism, and education. How did you choose these themes? Are there real life parallels to these?

Keiko: The stories were based on our interviews with the Hokkori staff members. Hokkori wasn’t made under one ideology, but it became that way because of the nature of the area. Zainichi Koreans (Korean diaspora living in Japan) lived in the area, and through their challenging experiences, people in the area have developed valuable knowledge about building a multicultural society, which can be applied today. The people who gather in Hokkori, each one has a different story, each one has a different kind of society they want to create.

Ian: Because we had a lot of stories from various people, each character held different aspects from different people in the community. From the onset, we didn’t have the idea of what specific aspects to highlight. It’s through the development of the characters that we realized what each one should focus on.

Keiko: Refining the core of the characters was done through the process. It was not set from the beginning, but polished through the experience of creating. By doing it from Kinosaki to Manila, there were lots of changes that happened along the way and we learned to refine what’s important.

How did you approach making Sari-Sali interactive for the audience?

Ian: When we were starting the project, we just wanted to try out things as performers. At some point we wanted to explore the idea of interacting with an audience through space. When the actors came in, it all came naturally. When Julio Garcia (who plays the role of Kaloy) started devising his character’s piece, it generated a lot of interactive moments, and we decided to lean into it. Coming from PETA, I think it’s in the PETA DNA to have that kind of interactivity. At some point it felt detached that only Julio had interactions, so we built it around the other actors as well.

Keiko: We ended up with the idea of having the audience be in the cafe itself and not separate from the story. Julio took it beautifully inside the performance.

Were there any particular spontaneous audience interactions that stood out to you?

Keiko: I have so many. We expected them to participate maybe only in certain parts, but the audience was so ready to do things together. In Mayumi’s cafe scene, the audience were told to repeat the Japanese word “Hana” (flower in Japanese) alongside an action pointing towards a vocabulary card. In later scenes, when Mayumi repeated the same movements, the audience mimicked the gesture without being instructed. It surprised me how engaged everyone was. There were also scenes where the audience were acting like they’re performing in the scene as well.

Ian: For the Filipino audience, it was kinda expected for me to be this interactive. It has been PETA’s practice a lot of times. What surprised me with the interactions were not really the audience but more on the actors’ side, especially for the japanese actors. It’s difficult for actors to do these interactive elements as it needs a lot of prep to do that.

Keiko: One of our actors, Kozaka Hiroyuki-san, who plays the role of Yoshi, told me how the experience of acting in the Philippines really changed his perspective of theatre.

Are there any differences between the Japan and Manila audience?

Keiko: Japanese audiences are typically more reserved. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just different. When they participated in the performances, I can tell that they enjoyed it. A strong part for the Japanese audience though is that they appreciated the complexity and ambiguity of the piece a lot.

Ian: A major difference is how the actors interact with different audiences. Japanese audiences typically need a bit of prep work. In Kinosaki, we had to have a separate meeting with our test audience and brief them on what to expect. With the PETA audience on the other hand, it just happened. I guess that’s cultural exchange in that sense. It’s also interesting how different audiences would have similar and different perspectives on the piece. I appreciate how the piece affected the audience on a personal level. There was a review I read in the Philippines where the writer was a person who didn’t like going out, and they just decided one day to watch the Sari-Sali. That writer was able to see herself in Ayaka’s character. Different kinds of realizations from different individuals.

Keiko: I was surprised that so many people resonated with Ayaka. The audience seemed like they were very outgoing, but then inside there were a lot of people like Ayaka – feeling shy, feeling lost, and trying to find a community.

Sari-Sali had beautiful use of sound design and music. What can you share about that?

Keiko: Toru Koda and Mina Hayashi, our sound designers, really brought the piece to somewhere special. Vashti Bunyan’s Diamond Day was one of the insert songs for the piece that the audience resonated with. The song was used in Kinosaki first, and was suggested by Toru. At one point there was a possibility of taking it out, but the song gave the piece a feeling of nostalgia, and “arriving”, that’s why we decided to keep it.

Ian: Toru was with us while we were developing the piece. Throughout the process, he would suggest things like to put music and sound on certain parts. Sometimes it won’t work and we change it, it’s an organic way of creating the sound design for the production.

Keiko: Toru and I worked really closely so we had the same ideas. In the Manila production, Mina on the other hand, was really looking at the whole picture of the sound design. She would consider if our music choices organically fit with the narrative. I was impressed with her looking at that.

How did your feelings change before and after performing the production to a live audience?

Keiko: It was really touching when I saw the audience in Manila, it felt like we needed them for everything to feel complete. Ralph Lumbres, our set designer, said that the last piece of the performance finally arrived. It was how we dreamed it to be. It was so touching. There was a big difference between rehearsal and performance. I thought we needed to present a perfect piece to the audience, but I’ve come to realize that we can actually ask them to help us complete it.

Maybe there are no specific answers but it also kinda pushes you to ask yourself, What can I do? What kind of community do I want to build?

Ian: The journey of coming from an idea to reality is interesting. In the process of trying to understand these characters’ stories, we slowly got to know more about different cultures and people. As creators, as actors, we try to understand the characters and make sense of things. What stories we tell and why. And in that process, we can hopefully get a better understanding of human nature. Maybe there are no specific answers but it also kinda pushes you to ask yourself, What can I do? What kind of community do I want to build? Because it’s a multicultural interaction you understand more about other cultures. I still get surprised that I keep discovering more about things and people. The culture is always evolving.

Keiko: We felt really proud of ourselves in the process. There are many international collaborations out there but I’m grateful to have all my colleagues, and for being able to talk about specific Japanese social issues. I appreciated that our collaborators tried to understand our social conditions. They could’ve said, it’s not our culture and business, but they were genuinely interested in the social discourse. I was proud of myself that our generation can have these kinds of discussions about contemporary society. I want to understand contemporary society in the Philippines as well. To have an exchange of history and culture.

What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned as directors through this multicultural project?

Ian: the idea of openness. Collaboration is about sharing, not imposing. Something that’s right for you might not be for them. This might be your idea, but people might be able to improve on it. You have to accept that ideas will clash. It is a challenge to figure out how to make things work, but it’s also something really rewarding. Even with working with Keiko there’s always a surprise every time. There’s never a right way to do things, it’s always changing and evolving.

Keiko:  I think the reason why our collaborations have had totally different formats is because of the openness we have. The reason we could work together so many times. Our premise is we are different, everyone is different, so we try to understand what can happen among these people. Working with different people I have an opportunity to compare, which is a rare opportunity.

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Afterword

Keiko: I showed the video of the performance to the people in Hokkori and they were really touched by it. Seeing a theater performance similar to their own daily lives felt meaningful. Hopefully the piece opens up a wider discussion on how to make our own communities better. The performance doesn’t give complete solutions but opens up discussions. If the performance goes beyond the theatre it would be really great.

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Keiko Yamaguchi is the founder of BRDG, a theater production based in Kyoto.

Ian Segarra is an actor and director. He is also the Senior Artist Teacher at PETA.

Interviewed by Ralph Barrientos
June 2025