Editor’s note: San Diego Jewish World is happy to welcome Carol Davis back to its band of reviewers after a 6 1/2 year hiatus. By clicking on her byline, you may access the extensive store of reviews Davis had written previously for this publication. With Davis and fellow reviewers Eric George Tauber , Eva Trieger, and Cantor Sheldon Foster Merel all covering theater in San Diego County, we’re confident our publication’s arts coverage will be greatly enhanced to our readers’ benefit.
LA JOLLA, California — Six million executed. Three million executed. I could go on but why? Genocide is genocide and no amount of numbers can change what was. These numbers represent just some of the total deaths of Jews under Hitler in Germany and elsewhere, and the Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge regime of the dictator Pol Pot in the late 1970s.
Jews in Germany, before they were rounded up, had participated in every day life as merchants, musicians, teachers, students, parents…the usual stuff. Such were the activities of the Cambodians in their country with one exception; they were celebrated by most for their music. Before the invasion of the Khmer Rouge, intellectuals, writers and artists were part of the national fabric.
All that changed on a dime.
In 1975, the Khmer Rouge swooped in arresting citizens for crimes against the government. Music was barred and all roads out were barricaded. Western influenced rock music or the Cambodian Rock scene was all but hijacked. The musicians were imprisoned in one form or another and that was the night the music died.
For better or worse, the US had been in Cambodia from 1970-75 with forces and money to boost and give assistance to the Cambodian Government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk to “promote human rights and foster economic development,” among others things, but mainly to keep the Khmer Rouge on the straight and narrow.
For a short time, some modernity returned to the country ushering in the era of rock and roll and the musical influences of western and other nations. As we’ve seen recently and in past experiences, the U.S. left that country high and dry thereby inviting a hostile takeover. Thousands were thrown into Cell S 21 and, over the next four years, three million Cambodians were exterminated. Eight of those held in S 21 managed to leave, somehow. One unidentified victim is believed to be still out there.
UCSD graduate Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band finally made its way to the La Jolla Playhouse. Yee is a graduate of UC San Diego’s MFA Playwright Program. After listening to the music of ‘Dengue Fever’ a Los Angeles-based band she heard playing at the Adams Street Fair, she did some research, fell in love with the music, and was inspired to write her story.
Under director Chay Ye’s watchful eyes, a multi-talented cast, and in conjunction with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and co- produced with Portland Center Stage at the Armory, this is one play you won’t want to miss. Her piece will be playing at The Playhouse through Dec. 15.
Yee’s play zeroes in on that era in her ancestral history, juxtaposed with a poignant father-daughter story that is filled with pathos, tragedy, a bit of silliness and mostly love. It’s sheer brilliance in its conception.
The story picks up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 30 years after the invasion of the Khmer Rouge, and as it unfolds it travels back and forth in time between then and now.
Yee’s ‘Band’ story is a father-daughter revelation, about not knowing what daddy did in the war 30 years earlier and the music that drove him to stay in his native homeland..
It’s a story about resilience, love, surviving, and the power of music. It’s all that and more. Following a high- energy concert with the talented musicians in the band. emcee Duch (Diasuke Tsuji) hops up on stage and introduces himself and then takes over some of the story. As he charms in a diabolical way, we will later understand the why of his being.
Neary (Brooke Ishibashi), a Cambodian American, born and raised in the States is an American lawyer. She is in Cambodia working for the United Nations, uncovering facts about the killings in Cell S 21. On this day she was to hold a news conference describing the horrors and exterminations that happened in S 21. She thinks she has located the names of seven prisoners who escaped. She is now on the trail of the eighth.
Much to her chagrin, her father Chum (Joe Ngo), who, 30 years ago, was the leader of the Cyclos. the band he and his friends Rom (Abraham Kim), Ted (Moses Villarama) and Pou (Jane Lui) founded, has come to Phnom Penh and is demanding that his daughter forgo her news conference, forget about the entire matter, and come home to Massachusetts with him,
When she tells him of her findings and how much research she has done to bring the story forward and that she suspects her father was the eighth to have escaped, he challenges her to spend one night in the cell alone and then tell him what she thinks and why he has chosen to leave the past where it belongs.
Six characters take on multiple roles as musicians/ prisoners/ friends/ and torturers. All are members in the ‘Cambodian Rock Band’ performing about 13 songs from the popular Rock Group ‘Dengue Fever.’ Along the way they transform into two or more other characters helping to ferret out the story and filling in the time frames from the beginnings of a relatively free society to a dictatorship where no one was safe.
Under Matthew MacNelly’s keen musical direction and David Weiner’s psychedelic lighting, Sara Ryung Clement’s mix and match early 60’s jumpsuits to bell bottoms to present day costumes, no stone is left unturned, including a slideshow of the faces of some of those who were murdered. It’s as heartbreaking as visiting any one of a number of Holocaust Museums.
When we first meet Neary’s dad, Chum (Joe Ngo) he comes off as a nerdy caricature of himself. Yet as stereotypical as he is, he commands our attention as a loving, caring dad who later morphs into a vibrant and brilliant musician. After the takeover he was taken prisoner; beaten, abused by Duch (our emcee) and held in S 21. Scenes from his time as a prisoner that he recalls in flashback in horrific detail will make your blood boil and the bile stick in your gut.
This play is reminiscent of Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone, in which Nguyen, a first generation Vietnamese, writes about his Vietnamese parents and in particular his father, a helicopter pilot who participated in heroic rescues during the evacuation of Vietnam when Saigon fell to the North. He refused to discuss the war with his grown son. So it was with Chum.
Daisuke Tsuji’s Duch is the charming emcee. and former math instructor who took pleasure as the Hitler like S 21 Commandant. Joe Ngo is all but perfect as he pivots back and forth as dad and young musician. All are on board as musicians singing and playing their hearts out as well as serving as characters in the play within the story.
As one who is not that familiar with the music, has never been impressed with the whole psychedelic scene, had never heard of Cambodian Rock, I’m now a believer. Yee’s play will move you beyond the music, beyond the high-energy performances of the band, to a place of forgiveness, enduring and non-judgmental parental love and redemption.
The sheer velocity of the two-hour plus production had me anxious to get home ASAP to do some homework on this slice of history I was not familiar with. I wondered why I didn’t know this history (although The Killing Fields did come up) and wondered how many others are my same place?
It matters not who tells the stories; it’s important that they be told in the first person. Hats off to Yee and her impressive and explosive Cambodian Rock Band that is expected to move to the off-Broadway stage of the Signature Theatre when this run ends.
Run don’t walk to get tickets. You won’t regret it.
Two thumbs up!
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Through Dec. 15th
Organization: La Jolla Playhouse
Phone: 858-550-1010
Production Type: Musical Drama
Where: 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, UC Campus
Ticket Prices: Starting at $25.00
Web: lajollaplayhouse.com
Venue: Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre
*
Carol Davis is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com
Pingback: Yee's back with 'Cambodian Rock Band' - San Diego Jewish World