Asian | Dangerous Common Sense

Vietgone

San Francisco, CA
at the American Conservatory Theater, Strand Theater
Extended through April 29, 2018

Vietgone

by Qui Nguyen
directed by Jaime Castañeda

ACT advertising Vietgone as “The irreverent road-trip comedy” is almost sacrilegious. The categorization misses the depth, power, and cultural importance of this newish play.

Anyone selling Vietgone as a mindless-sounding comedy rode the momentary surface story, ignoring the characters, context, and important human issue that makes Vietgone truly memorable. The strength of Vietgone is its suburb writing which hits the mark in storytelling, characterization, pace, and perspective.

The playwright character (Jomar Tagatac) comes on stage in the opening scene to assure the audience that this show is not about his parents. Then we watch his mother and father flee Vietnam at the fall of Saigon, meet in a refugee camp, and adapt in their own, very different ways.

The excellence of Vietgone is how we learn about the people. Writing too much about the surface narrative would be as bad as passing the play off a “road-trip comedy” in an ad. But, let’s explain the “road trip”.

We meet the hero Quang (James Seol) in Saigon where he is a pilot for the South Vietnamese army. Quang and his sidekick, named only “Asian Guy” (Stephen Hu), fly a helicopter load of desperate people onto an American aircraft carrier as Saigon falls. Quang and Asian Guy think they will return to the mainland to find and evacuate Quang’s wife and children in a quick, follow-on rescue flight. That rescue doesn’t happen, and the men wind up being transported on the carrier to America and being sent to a refugee camp in Arkansas. Once there, Quang meets Tong (Jenelle Chu) and Tong’s mother (Cindy Im). There’s chemistry between Quang and Tong, but he is focused on the family he left behind. After some time Quang and the Asian Guy set out on a motorcycle for Camp Pendleton in California so that Quang can demand to be transported back to Vietnam and reunited with his wife and kids.

The play shifts back and forth in time and location a lot. We see Quang and the Asian Guy on the motorcycle heading from Arkansas to California fairly early in the play, and they have scenes which reflect on their refugee/new to America status. These road-trip moments are revelatory about the characters and about America. They are important, insightful, and often very comedic.

But, the same categorization is true for all of the scenes, not just the ones on the motorcycle. There are tremendously funny, and simultaneously meaningful, moments at the refugee camp and earlier in Vietnam. Vietgone is not a road trip, it’s a people trip.

It’s particularly a refugee trip, a stranger-in-a-strange-land trip, a trip down Prejudice Lane… and not only from the perspective of our heros being discriminated against, but also letting the Vietnamese characters remember their own prejudices.

There are so many flashes of revelation and memory. The characters’ pain of being cut off from their homeland and having to deal with American Supremacy hit me especially hard because of the LGBT refugees and asylum seekers I know from my church’s Guardian Group. The assumption of the wrongness of the US involvement in Vietnam re-immersed me in my high-school/college moral self righteousness. And, the unconscious homogeneity of white America into the 1970’s was striking to recall… and also made extremely funny when the Vietnamese characters talk among themselves about how Americans all think that they are Chinese because Americans think all Asians are Chinese. The kicker is that the Vietnamese characters admit that back home in Saigon they discriminated against people from China and now everyone they meet thinks that they are Chinese themselves.

I am afraid you need to see the play to understand how funny and human this scenario — and the rest of play — are.

The real-life playwright, Nguyen, reportedly loves rap music and fight scenes. He apparently also loves filthy language. These are all things that I generally don’t want to see or hear. Usually I find them cheap devices to appear young or cool, or ways to fill out the two-hours in the theater. Each of them is on target in Vietgone. They make the storytelling more authentic.

The final scene between the playwright and Quan, the helicopter pilot and NOT the playwright’s father, is a worth a trip to the theater on its own. You need the context of the previous two hours’ “road trip”, but the power of this set-in-the-modern-day coda is extreme. If you are close to my age, your college-age moral superiority will be reeling.

Vietgone the play is a complete 5-star, standing ovation, forcing-you-outside-your-comfort-zone, thinking outside-of-the-box piece of art.

ACT’s production is definitely an excellent theater experience. Unfortunately, the director’s and artistic team’s choices made the afternoon less moving than the version we saw in Ashland in 2016 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Here’s why:

Apparently each production develops the musical accompaniment for the rap scenes. At ACT, there is loudish, somewhat melodic music behind the words which distracted from their power. At OSF I don’t remember any music, although I have been assured that it was there. But, in Ashland, the rhythm and cadence of the words ruled, and the scenes were somehow, but definitely, more commanding.
All actors except for those playing Quang and Tong have multiple roles and the flawless switching among the identities made the five-person cast seem much larger in Ashland. But, at ACT it doesn’t work so seamlessly. The first multiple character, Jomar Tagatac as the Playwright, has a distinctive beard. That unique-looking fur reappears in all of his roles, forcing us to willingly suspend our disbelief. If I were the director I would have picked another actor or made Tagatac cut the thing off!
One of my favorite scenes is a fight between the good guys (the Vietnamese) and the bad guys (American bikers). When I saw it originally it was beautifully, humorously, outrageously staged in stylized broadness. It was a wonderful moment of family lore made real in front of you. It was just another one-minute scene at ACT. All the parts and lines were there, but it was sped through. ACT really ran over a show stopping moment.
The actors at ACT were excellent. I especially liked James Seol’s Quang. But, except for Seol, I felt that the Ashland actors were clearly better. More energetic? More involved? Better looking? (I feel cheap saying this, but, yes. At least in a couple cases.)

Overall, ACT’s casting choices, sound design, and directing don’t let Vietgone be as perfect as it was in Ashland. It’s still very, very well worth seeing. But, ACT’s Vietgone is just excellent and not transformative.

Play rating:

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo :: Photo OSF

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo
by Jiehae Park
WORLD PREMIERE

At least half of the audience has a wonderful time seeing a fun show with amusing characters. But, make no mistake about what’s amusing: Asian stereotypes speaking pigeon English while committing cultural faux pas that annoy the very “American” 20-something children of the butt of the jokes.

2017 audiences would not put up with a performance whose entertainment value hinged on older African Americans portrayed as lazy Stepin Fetchit’s. That racism would not be considered amusing.

But, apparently it’s still okay to anchor an evening’s laughs on over-emotional, bicycle riding, odd-speaking Asians. It’s especially okay when the play is written by person of Korean heritage.

You can examine stereotypes, make them amusing, and still treat the characters with respect. Last year’s Vietgone! played off the cultural divide of immigrant Asian generations. Vietgone! worked to tell the story of the now-older, immigrant generation, integrating the Old-World myths into a unified family history that that story’s playwright shared with audiences with love, respect, and… yes… humor. (I still remember fondly the Ninja motorcycle fight!)

But, in Hannah, there is no cultural reconciliation. Instead, it’s all about the title character. Quirky-acting Grandmother, Mother, and Dad exist only for Hannah’s self-absorbed attempt to connect to her family and cultural heritage. Over-the-top caricatures come and go as Hannah makes meaning of her family and centuries of Korean heritage… all in the two weeks she has allowed for this revelation, or, if you prefer, in the 90-minute running time of the play. She never seems to catch on to what Dad or anyone else is about unless the storyline also involves her. Korean stuff remains alien and laugh-inducing to the end.

Beyond the racism, the play is simply poorly constructed and written.

It’s another one of those plays so loaded with Symbolism and Meaning that you know you’re a boob for not appreciating the greatness of it all. I confess I struggled. I tried to add meaning to the thin, often-repeated, poorly detailed story of a bear and a tiger. That gem had so much importance, and so much of that importance remains lost on me.

Then there are the great moments of Magical Realism — or of something. One favorite is the dropping of a severed bloody foot into Mother’s hands when she is in a dream scene on a roof. Of course that foot drop gets a laugh because it’s such an absurd piece of physical comedy. But, I am also sure that the oversized bleeding prop had much deep meaning that I need to be educated on. Unfortunately, it was just one of so many MR moments that I really didn’t appreciate fully.

There is an entire semester, if not academic year, that explores the reason for the magpie, rock, and why the females in this particular family have a “wish”. Pretentious hogwash.

Sean Jones

I also need to complain about casting. There are many lines where Sean Jones (Dang, Hannah’s brother) talks about being disoriented in Seoul because everyone looks just like him, so Asian. Well, all the cast in Hannah does look Asian and has Asian surnames, except for Sean. The mismatch between the physical character and his lines is disconcerting. Sean is tall, dark, hairy, and doesn’t have discernibly Asian features (whatever they are). When he bemoans how everyone in Korea looks just like him, you want to see his DNA test to see where Ancestry.com says he really comes from. (In a panel discussion, he explained that he is half Japanese.)

Of course, Sean does an admirable job acting in the role. It’s not his fault that his looks don’t match the script. And, all the other actors are just fine, too. My unhappiness has nothing to do with the onstage talent or the technical aspects of the show.

Finally, let me assure you that although I get only a “C” on the symbolism test, I have an inkling that the play is about Hannah coming to understand her heritage, getting her mother through a depression, and about the family in general. But, Hannah doesn’t do a great job of growing. And, Hannah’s quest has nothing to do why the audience is having a good time. Her search is a cover to allow the racist core to masquerade as art.

Simply, the audience enjoys the performance because of the witty, snarky anti-Asian cartoons that are the foundation of this 90-minute travesty.

I am disappointed, and say Hannah rates .