{"id":116753,"date":"2025-08-14T10:30:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T14:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=116753"},"modified":"2025-08-14T10:30:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T14:30:34","slug":"scrutiny-summerworks-performance-festival-26-doctors-emotional-memory-piece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2025\/08\/14\/scrutiny-summerworks-performance-festival-26-doctors-emotional-memory-piece\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | SummerWorks Performance Festival: 26 Doctors is an Emotional Memory Piece"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sugith
Sugith Varughese as Dr. Aajay Singh in CTV’s Transplant (Image by Sphere Media: CTV)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SummerWorks Performance Festival: 26 Doctors. Written & performed by Sugith Varughese, Factory Theatre, August 12, 2025.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

One of the most appealing aspects of SummerWorks is the hybrid nature of so many performances. Quite often at the festival, we see dance combined with music or photography working with lighting design and choreography in fresh and innovative ways.<\/p>\n

Sugith Varughese\u2019s 26 Doctors merges film and video footage with an autobiographical rendition of the actor\u2019s life that falls easily into the festival\u2019s format, but it feels less experimental and is quite heartfelt.<\/p>\n

Varughese \u2014 he tells us that his last name rhymes with Portuguese \u2014 is a veteran actor, writer and director who has made a good living in Canada, a place that normally treats its actors, \u201cas if they\u2019re in a witness protection program.\u201d It\u2019s a witticism that Sugith, whose name was created as a combination of his parents Susan and George, makes during his performance, which is self-deprecating and almost painfully honest.<\/p>\n

The sold-out and very responsive audience enjoyed his account of growing up as an Indian boy in Canada\u2019s heartland, rural Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n

Storytelling<\/h3>\n

Being a nerdy brown skinned kid who couldn\u2019t play hockey in the Canadian prairies was only part of Varughese\u2019s problems. Far worse was that he didn\u2019t want to become a doctor, like his father, and grandfather and uncles and \u2014 well, you get the picture.<\/p>\n

Instead, he wanted to play doctors \u2014 and other professions \u2014 as an actor, a profession frowned upon in Indian, and, quite frankly, many cultures.<\/p>\n

Despite having an awful name for an actor \u2014 Varughese has fun telling us about people who changed their names like Krishna Pandjit Bhanji, who is internationally known as Ben Kingsley \u2014 Sugith has performed widely on television and cinema for decades.<\/p>\n

He has played 26 doctors, the most famous being surgeon Aajay Singh on the long-running CTV drama Transplant.<\/p>\n

The Focus<\/h3>\n

As the one-man show neared it conclusion, the play reached its focus: the difficult but loving relationship between Sugith and his renowned medical father. It\u2019s far too late when Sugith finds out that his dad wanted to be an actor when he was young but gave it up for medicine.<\/p>\n

Would the two had been closer if they had been more open with each other?<\/p>\n

26 Doctors received a standing ovation at its only performance at the Factory Theatre. Varughese\u2019s play could be tightened, quite frankly, to focus more on the dynamic between an accomplished father and a talented son who chose a different path.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a play that deserves to be revived.<\/p>\n

By: Marc Glassman for Ludwig-Van<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Sugith Varughese\u2019s fraught life as a South Asian Canadian artist is fodder for theatre in 26 Doctors, presented at SummerWorks Performance Festival in Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41660,41496,52,59,63],"tags":[42181,6309],"yst_prominent_words":[12653,16999,31151,20854,14796,7412,6811,10744,9913,7451,7943,11181],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/Copy-of-REVIEW-20.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-un7","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116753"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116757,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116753\/revisions\/116757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116753"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=116753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}