Skip to content

The Sunglasses Monologue coming to artsPlace in Canmore

The Sunglasses Monologue featuring Vivian Chong and her furry co-star, Catcher, will be on at the artsPlace on July 25 and July 27. The one-woman show illustrates Chong's story after a medical accident that led to her losing her vision.

CANMORE – After an unfortunate reaction to Ibuprofen in 2004, Vivian Chong was put into a coma.

The rare medical incident left Chong with internal burns – her eardrums and her corneas were burnt off, her eyesight dimmed and eventually, was gone completely.

However, losing her sight did not stop the Toronto artist from creating. As she dealt with her loss, she continued her creative career and she did it with a touch of comedy.

“I also blend my personal story with comedy to lighten up life because life can sometimes gets really heavy and people do experience different things," Chong said. "Sometimes they’re traumatic, but how do I lift myself up and lift up other people? So I decided to create an artform that showcases everything." 

With her humour and wit, Chong wrote, composed and produced her own  show called The Sunglasses Monologue. The one-woman show, with the exception of her special furry guest star, recounts the personal story of Chong with each scene touching on different themes including love, betrayal, grief, re-entering society, self-acceptance and also resiliency.

“Resiliency is also a big topic and it will weave in and out of my show with a resiliency that someone would have to summon up inside themselves, not from outside and not from other people,” Chong said.

Through humour, Chong found the resiliency she needed to cope with the loss of her eyesight, whereas before she tried to fit into society's mold.

Initially, when Chong was reintegrating herself into the world of performance, she kept running into obstacle after obstacle. She recalled an audition from a time after her recovery from the hospital, Chong and the other audition members were asked to partner up.

“So my partner for the audition, walked forward so I followed his voice and walked forward and he walked forward all the way to – I didn’t know he was standing all the way to the edge, like one inch from the edge – I just kept following the voice, I kept walking and I fell off the stage,” Chong said.

Although Chong felt humiliated, she had a point of revelation.

“This is not the only way. I don’t have to fit into other peoples molds and do the same as how everyone does things. So I picked up myself and decided to create my one-woman show. That’s how it began because I fell off the stage in the audition."

For Chong, that’s when she discovered humour, laughing at her situation and embracing her new reality. Each show, Chong said she leaves a piece of herself with the audience.

“It’s actually pretty raw, it kind of let me bleeding eternally, not like literally bleeding but in an emotional bleeding kind of way. To reopen all the chapters in my life, to be so vulnerable on stage and to be vulnerable to a new audience who have never met me or never knew these stories, it’s a very heartfelt and vulnerable experience,” Chong said.

The Sunglasses Monologue featuring Vivian Chong and her dog, Catcher, will be on at the artsPlace on July 25 and July 27 at 7:30 p.m.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks