Vietgone

Jericho Arts Centre until June 26, 2022
Tickets for in-theatre and online performances from $26 at www.unitedplayers.com or 604-224-8007

Posted June 6, 2022

A lovely rainy Sunday, perfect for drinking tea and reading. Why, oh why, did I agree to drive all the way to Jericho Arts Centre, about  three hours travelling time there and back from my place, to review Vietgone?

I am so glad I did. This is a great show: a love story but not just in the usual sense. Quang (Chris Lam) loves Vietnam, his homeland, and he loves his wife and two kids. But the war is lost, Saigon has fallen, the Americans are pulling out and the ensuing chaos in South Vietnam makes it no place to be. A helicopter pilot, Quang gets out but in his last minute withdrawal, his family gets left behind.

Once in a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, all Quang wants is to go back to Vietnam. He patches up an old motor bike and with his pal Nhan (Jeremy Truong), they hit the road bound for California and then, hopefully, back to Vietnam.

And then there is Tong (Alison Chang), also a Vietnam refugee in Fort Chaffee along with her mother Huong (Aurora Chan). Tong left behind her fiancé and her brother Khue (also played by Jeremy Truong) who refused to leave and demanded that their mother join Tong on her escape to America.

Months pass. “This is bullshit/I don’t want this/I wanna go home” raps Quang. Tong, on the other hand, eventually sings, “I’ll make it [America] home”.

Qui Nguyen, the playwright, is a character (played by Ryan Anthony Kwok) in Vietgone and right at the top he claims this play is not about his family and – wink, wink – especially  not about his parents. Of course it is and part of the appeal of this play is the aura of authenticity.

But also hugely appealing is the style of Vietgone with lots of rapping, singing, projections (Nico Dicecco), music (Jon Qpid with DJ-ing by Dominic Grimm), humour – even line-dancing.

But there’s also anger, sorrow and coming to terms with a new reality. When American Guy (David Johnston) says “We are really sorry for what we did to your country” and says he lost a brother “over there”, Quang goes ballistic. “You have no idea, you motherfucker. I lost my wife and kids, I lost my whole country…I lost everything”.

Directed by Keltie Forsyth and Louisa Phung for United Players, this is a tight, talented cast, perfectly equipped to handle the rapping and singing, the comedy and drama. It’s a personal best for Chris Lam (Quang) in a role in which he can really spread his wings. Quang is alternately a bad-ass and a real softie; not often cast in a romantic lead, Lam pulls it off with flair. Full of swagger and anger, he brings us a character who’s also heartbroken.

Alison Chang, as Tong, is both sweet and sassy. “I’m a bitch and proud of it”, she says. Straining credibility is the speed with which Tong asks Quang if he wants to “copulate”. This seems more New York playwright Qui Nguyen speaking than Tong but there’s a huge generation and cultural gap between Tong and me – so who knows?

Aurora Chan is appropriately mouthy and assertive as Tong’s mother Huong and her character’s advice to her daughter ultimately pays off.

An aspect of Vietgone that doesn’t appear until the very end is, in its way, quite profound. Now advanced in age, Tong and Quang are questioned by their son, the playwright, who wants to know all about “the war”. “Go rent a movie if you want to hear about the war”, Quang says angrily. Why do we always want to know about the war? What about life – before the war – in Vietnam? What about the traditions, the life, the land, the stories? What gets lost if history just boils down to accounts of the politics, the deaths, the cost, the destruction?

Vietgone cuts all that away and tells the story of two young Vietnamese that leave their homeland and make a new life – albeit reluctantly – in America. It rings true.