A haunting reflection on home, grief, and the Filipino-Kiwi experience

When playwright Alyssa Medel began writing Ilang-Ilang, she wasn’t setting out to romanticise migration or glorify success abroad. Instead, the young Filipino-Kiwi creative wanted to unpack the uncomfortable truths that many diaspora families quietly live with — guilt, distance, and the haunting question of what could have been if life had gone differently.

Opening at Auckland’s Basement Theatre from October 28 to November 1, 2025, Ilang-Ilang marks Medel’s debut as a writer-director.

The play, set between her home village of Ilang in Davao City and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, follows Aya, a Filipino-Kiwi woman who returns home after the sudden death of her cousin Faith. But Faith’s ghost lingers, forcing Aya to confront not just loss but the tangled emotions of belonging to two worlds.

“It really looks at the dynamic between cousins who were almost like sisters,” Medel said in our interview. “One grew up overseas and one stayed behind. They were very similar in the first five years of their lives — but because of where they ended up, their fates were so different," she told AMC.

Between two lives

Through Aya and Faith’s intertwined stories, Ilang-Ilang explores the mental tug-of-war familiar to many immigrants: the guilt of leaving and the frustration of being misunderstood by those who stayed. Medel captures this quiet tension with authenticity, drawing from her own experiences as someone who moved from the Philippines to New Zealand as a child.

“The cousin who stayed behind represents those who try to survive within the system, questioning why the solution is always to leave the country,” she explained. “Meanwhile, Aya, who grew up in New Zealand, struggles to give herself permission to have hardships too — because compared to the struggles back home, hers seem small.”

In Filipino families, this tension is an unspoken truth. Relatives abroad are often seen as the lucky ones, the breadwinners, the symbols of success. But for many, migration brings its own kind of loneliness. “There’s always this perception that if you’re overseas, you’ve got it all figured out,” Medel said. “But grief, guilt, and disconnection travel with you.”

Alyssa Medel, herself a Filipino 1.5 generation Kiwi who grew up between two cultures, draws deeply from her own life and home village of Ilang in Davao City. Photo: Supplied

Rooted in memory

The seeds of Ilang-Ilang were planted when Medel returned to the Philippines for a long visit after graduating from university. It was the first time in years she’d spent significant time with her extended family. Reconnecting with her cousins — all young women navigating adulthood — made her reflect deeply on the different paths their lives had taken.

“I realised how much I’d missed out on,” she recalled. “They were at that stage of choosing what to study, what to do with their lives, and I wished I could help them see more options beyond what society expected — beyond nursing or teaching. I wanted them to feel that pursuing art or something unconventional was valid too.”

That trip inspired not only the characters of Aya and Faith but also the emotional geography of Ilang-Ilang. The name itself — drawn from her hometown, Ilang, and from the native Philippine flower known for its sweet, lingering scent — became a metaphor for memory, longing, and homecoming.

“It’s about reconnecting with your roots,” Medel said. “And also questioning what it really means to love your country — beyond just sending money back home.”

Bringing the Filipino voice to the Kiwi stage

In a theatre landscape where Filipino stories are rarely told, Ilang-Ilang stands out.

Its all-Filipino cast includes Ariadne Baltazar as Aya and Marianne Infante as Faith — both known for championing Asian and Pasifika representation on stage and screen. ehind the scenes is a diverse team of creatives of colour, including dramaturg Ankita Singh, production designer Chye-Ling Huang, and sound designer Connor Magatogia.

For Medel, representation isn’t a buzzword. It’s the foundation of her artistic practice. “We want our community to see themselves reflected authentically — not as side characters or stereotypes, but as full human beings,” she said.

But putting up a show like this isn’t easy. Ilang-Ilang is a profit-share production, meaning the cast and crew are largely volunteering their time. Despite applying for grants, the team couldn’t secure funding — a challenge Medel knows all too well.

“There’s not a lot of funding for minority artists, and you have to constantly justify your existence,” she said. “You’re told there aren’t enough Asian audiences to make it worth funding, which isn’t true. The demand is there, but the system hasn’t caught up yet.”

Even so, the community rallied around her. “My peers told me, ‘Just do it — we’ll help you.’ That’s how Ilang-Ilang came to life,” she said with a smile. “It became a collective act of love.”

Leading the play are Ariadne Baltazar as Aya and Shortland Street's actress Marianne Infante as Faith. Photo: Supplied.

A mirror for Aotearoa

Beyond the Filipino community, Medel hopes Ilang-Ilang resonates with anyone who has ever felt suspended between worlds. “It’s not just about migration,” she said. “It’s about how we all carry grief and guilt — how we measure our lives against others, and how we find forgiveness for ourselves.”

In a time when migration, identity, and belonging are central to New Zealand’s evolving story, Ilang-Ilang offers a mirror. It asks audiences — especially Kiwi ones — to see immigrants not as newcomers starting from scratch, but as people carrying rich histories and invisible scars.

"Immigrants are more than the moment they land here,” Medel said. “We carry whole lives, whole worlds with us.”

Through Aya and Faith’s intertwined fates, Alyssa Medel invites us to sit with that ache — to recognise the beauty, and the burden, of having two homes.

Ilang-Ilang runs from October 8 to November 1, 2025, 8 at Basement Theatre, Auckland. For more information and tickets, visit the Basement Theatre website.

-Asia Media Centre