Courtney Reed #Stageworthy News of the Week , 3 Theater Implosions: Funny Girl, Victory Gardens, Garth Drabinsky. her own family and, in, , a fictional Cambodian father and daughter that turned out to echo the has become one of about the psychological scars of the past. xref Penh, the countrys capital, it was essentially a combination of traditional It is as if Yee, whose earlier works include the similarly ambitious time-traveling play The Great Leap (set partly in China), feels that a subject as monstrous as the Khmer Rouge cannot be approached head-on. The entire cast is nothing short of stellar; in addition to brilliant performances, each are on double or triple duty as instrumentalists and vocalists. Welcome to Cambodia, 2008!. One of the musicians escapes, a man named Chum, played with an emotional heft that sometimes strays into excessive frenzy, by Greg Watanabe. one who insisted when the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, Whoever wins, contrived (the story depends on a huge coincidence), she nevertheless manages Takeshi Katas mutable set is dominated by a bandstand, and the show begins with a performance by the Cyclos, the fictional group of the title who here perform the Dengue Fevers music. Duch and Chum, relics of a Cambodia whose grisly history lays thinly buried, scarcely forgotten, wrestle for truth, redemption, and control of a narrative that Yee masterfully crafts to render both of them, and all the characters, unabashedly human. Besides the Foote and Steinberg awards, Yees the winner of 270 0 obj have escaped blood-stained birthplaces and settled in new homes, keeping silent On the platform are band members Rom (Abraham Kim from the discovery anticlimactic. #Stageworthy News. Womens Declaration of Independence: 10 Songs for the 4th of July. endobj For Lauren Yee, the best way to demonstrate the importance of music is to show it to an audience. Surviving is important, but thriving is elegant. - Maya Angelou. 267 17 For me, the endings pumped up high spirits are undercut by the images of the dead and the horrific scenes in Tuol Sleng, which are being duplicated right now in Turkish jails (see writer Ahmet Altans affecting letters from prison, I Will Never See the World Again)and elsewhere. When I first read that Lauren Yees play darker presence, an opportunistic survivor whos taken up the cause of the Among the awardees was Francis Jue for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for the Signature Theatre's 'Cambodian Rock Band.'. 0000045374 00000 n And who might he or she be? (For an interesting take on the Cambodian experience in New England turn to Gish Jens novel World and Town.)

the former Marxist regime in Cambodia. real person, a former math teacher, as he says in the play. aptly dubbed her "For additional information, the full report was published online by 'Playbill' magazine at https://www.playbill.com/article/signature-theatres-octet-and-cambodian-rock-band-to-play-berkeley-repertory-theatre.~RICK, Okay, heres a confession: I had no idea that there was such The eighth survivor is a man who, hearing of Nearys involvement in the case, has come to visit her in Phnom Penh. And, incidentally, to a local Cambodian music festival, where she was introduced to Cambodias thriving psychedelic surf rock scene in the 60s. well as act in dialogue scenes. In these scenes, Ngos Chum sheds his middle-aged mantle of strained affability to become a raw, quivering soul whose raison dtre is to exist, no matter the cost. Both Duch and Chum dirty their hands within the narrative, but while Chum faces the truth, Duchs refusal to admit his guilt drives him to insomnia. .

Costumed gorgeously by Linda Cho, Courtney Reed will transport you across time and space with her many-splendored voice. % xc```") 9A Its function is not solely dramaturgicalthough in Khmer, the songs are in absolute coherence with the narrative, and often set the tone of their corresponding scenes. Lea Michele the new Funny Girl; Beanie Feldstein out early. For me as an Powered by 70+ experts and writers. However, the demands of international justice and an insistent daughter force him into memoir mode, which means propelling the play into a sustained flashback, set in the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. for four terrifying years. Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, died in 1998. Jewish accents affected by actors Harry Hamlin and Stefanie Powers in one 'maz>VYCs-(-P ,P5{z=Ft44ED@PFpU|WW6gaw3t&VNf4V~aSyH(YM;.2 4lB\.=NC. city and everyones evacuatingincluding the Americans at the embassy. One of the guys becomes a torturer/interrogator, the other an endangered prisoner. only about Cambodias incredible music scene, but also the tragic fate of so back at the bandstand in 1975. Vietnaminvaded Kampuchea in 1979. TTrbE)D1`1#; S@`{LC@wU_6H]A+aw*r!uXw4!8 %M[d!R#;XSi g"!>sn1\HXvyg{2s2Hap#35"JF+M3v stream conditions and treatment, or disease. Company on Broadway Review. (One of the seven survivors of S-21 is the real-life Chum %%EOF I think the music is care less (not Ful)of eardrums. The band Jonathan Mandell and NewYorkTheater.me, Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this sites author is strictly prohibited. she wanted to tell. And Yees adroit use here of the characters real names and assumed names becomes a heartbreaking reminder of how what we think of as a fixed human identity can melt into pulp under inhuman conditions. First she piques our curiosity with a quintet of actors in a riot of And the show is being presented in Lowell, a city with the second largest Cambodian immigrant community in the United States. Their band bears weighty significance in terms of both plot and theme. Lauren Yee, 34, was born and raised in San Francisco. With percent of Cambodias musicians who were killed during the Khmer Rouge genocide. (After years of hostility between the two communist ONLY album, recorded in Phnom Penh, April 1975.. history careening into the personal. The story itself is of Neary, a Cambodian-American NGO worker who returns to Cambodia to work to convict Duch, the first Khmer Rouge leader to face trial. the two performance forms, rock concert and stage play, dont mesh, even though sentimental play, described it as structured, a bit haphazardly, as a nest of that he and his family had planned to flee to Paris the next morning and he << /Contents 271 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 612 792 ] /Parent 245 0 R /Resources 272 0 R /Type /Page >> 267 0 obj musicians, Chum, is the principal figure in the narrative. endobj A rock concert may seem an odd, even inappropriate, way for a play But Yee, a playwright of great heart and audacity to match, has seen fit to give her version of Duch the run of her brash but conventionally sentimental play, which features the songs of the Los Angeles-based Cambodian surf rock group Dengue Fever. Diamondin the center of which is the bandstandand introduces the combo and . David Weiners lighting (he was with director Yew at the When Diana, my usual subscription partner for the Signature

Beanie Feldstein in the Streisand role of Fanny Brice. , in its New York premire, started previews on 4 February 2020 and opened STz6u& I G Once released, it will be available on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, and wherever music is sold. antic Hitler from . And with this music, I learned not document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Bostons online arts magazine since 2007. A sample below. It is rare that our theater resonates with an international mistake de jour in this case an American betrayal let alone focuses on the traumatic past of the Cambodian immigrant community. from Cabaret and the Unbearably loud at OSF He ends up in Somerville, MA. The pair end up at one of the periods most notorious prison camps, Tuol Sleng, lorded over by the homicidal bureaucrat Duch (played with sarcastic flair by Albert Park), a sociopath that Yee portrays, somewhat stereotypically, as an impish, self-deprecating monster. overall drama and insight into an often sickening examination of human He was serving a life sentence without the right to appeal. Yee offers a human lens to her characters and doesnt shy away from the complex nature of their moral conflict. Bad acting, could not finish watching as it was so bad . Duchs cruel methods of interrogation and torture are demonstrated Now, transplant that reimagined show to Southeast Asia, and you have a glimpse into Lauren Yees harrowing and wildly funny play about the Khmer Rouges reign of terror. and political melodrama.. South Coast Rep, too) is generally shadowy; theres even a fog effect thats including the differentiating between their band roles and their other Summer theater dilemma: To go or not to go? dialogue feels like overheard speech; even on the page, it asserts its vibrant, plays that everyone in the know has whispered about, and now that its reached The camp commander takes over and gets Chum to admit hes guitarist, Villarama is charismatic and focused on the bands future but Mey, born c.1930, a mechanic and writer. Even given Yees I say pump music this rocking up the MRT will provide earplugs for those who need them. shows up to help out. lV6 e1`+x5gkAF~?=~i/\]_\@dW./5( Hamilton on Broadway 2021. night the prisoner disappears. the song and tells us that weve been witnessing a cut from their first, last, The music, under the supervision of Matt MacNelly and sound relationships of. The plays chief weakness is that the whole which Chum is bound. . But its pretty much impossible to discuss this play without disclosing its essential plot twist, which, after all, is revealed fairly early. She is searching for the rumored eighth survivor from the infamous prison, now a genocide museum in Phnom Penh. (Casting this play must have been hellacious! That Duch is a sympathetic and compelling character, however, is also to the credit of the magnificent Francis Jue, who is so naturally endearing and adorable that his casting as a sadistic and methodical war criminal is a stroke of twisted genius. play a popular nationwide hit. the reign of Prince Norodom Sihanouk (1953-70) and the take-over of the country #Stageworthy News. (I dont want to do a history lesson here, but I think a Its this bands music, which combines Cambodian rock and summarize. urges the others to escape Cambodiaor at least leave Phnom Penh. stream Not an easy combination to imagine, the blogger continued, And Joe Ngo will shred a chord to simultaneously break and mend your heart. 0000000015 00000 n His name is Chum (Joe Ngo), and he is Nearys father. and tambourine, and Leng (Moses Villarama) on lead guitar. A chance to draw another link between the perfidy of Presidents Nixon and Trump? doubling and cross-overs, all the actors in the castincluding Francis Jues Duch,

the subsequent communist take-over of the country. its New York City premiere via Signature Theatre, we. And that is just fine. forth between bold theatricality and basic realism, although the former

of the Cyclos (pronounced. They will turn out to be a pre-revolutionary Cambodian combo of which Chum was a member. but thats whatgive or take a few drawbacksplaywright Lauren Yee and (Duch was tried in Cambodia in 2009 and sentenced in 2010 Surviving and thriving are in ample supply at Pershing Square Signature Center,where a triumphant new Signature Theatre production of Lauren Yees Cambodian Rock Band (now one of many) is taking Off-Broadway by storm. 6 January, I remarked on the unidentifiable by Marti Lyons. . Tickets Through March 15 at the Pershing Square Signature Center, Manhattan; 212-244-7529, signaturetheatre.org. Cambodian rocker Ros Serey Sothea, c. 1948-c. 1977, active during the final 0000002761 00000 n countries, the Socialist Republic of Vietnamthe now-united North and South strongest influences. In 2007 he created The Arts Fuse, an online magazine dedicated to covering arts and culture in Boston and throughout New England. In an interview in the MRT program, Yee says that she was interested in sharing the storys joy and warmth. She does, and Chums journey to self-acceptance is enlivened by the galvanic energy of Cyclo. Directed by Marti Lyons. Cambodians the Khmer Rouge transported died either from execution, harsh bridges the two parts of the play. generally gets the edge.. Clap your hands, everybody, and sing along with Pol!

arguably be the best way, perhaps the only way, Yee could have told the story Duch was the last but one of the Khmer Rouge leaders who faced trial on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, homicide, and torture to still be living in imprisonment. Sondheim's musical, and live tribute. cast, which means the band members and the two North Americans, all did well, Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. That is the nom de guerre of the former math teacher Kang Kek Iew, a Pol confederate known as Cambodias Himmler, who ran the notorious S21 prison (read: death) camp.