chicago.suntimes.com: In 1975, two Vietnamese strangers Meet Cute in Arkansas. Their courtship plays out in non-linear fashion, interspersed with video-game visuals, rom-com tableaux and defiant hip-hop boasts ripped from later decades.
If you’re feeling a little discombobulated already, playwright Qui Nguyen has you right where he wants you — wherever that is.
3 comments:
I read Vietgone in Megan's special topics class last semester and I really loved it! Qui Nguyen is an extremely talented playwright, and finds a way to spin the dramatic elements from his family's past into a comedic play. One of my favorite partsof this play is how Nguyen subverts the audiences'expectations about what the general tone of the play would be. In an interview he did about the show he mentioned that everyone always assumed that the plays he would write would be about his family's heritage, but this is not what he usually writes about. This show was his way of saying "okay, I'll write about my heritage, but I'll do it my way". He keeps the tone comedic and light, which is rare for a piece centered around the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Although this reviewer seemed to have a fairly mixed opinion about this production, they still recommended it to the audience and I couldn't agree more. The story itself is very interesting, and the way that Nguyen uses the combination of English and "Americanese" helps to further bring you into the show.
I was lucky enough to see Vietgone when it was at The Seattle Repertory Theatre in association with OSF in 2016. I really enjoyed the production when I saw it live, especially the way Nguyen uses humor to tell an ultimately sad story about his parents and their experiences during and after the Vietnam war. I found the way he used English that flowed to represent Vietnamese and the choppy English to represent English was very interesting and like the author of the article said it really did make the audience think of the American people as the outsiders and it really makes them connect and identify with the Vietnamese people and their story. I know the author of this article did not particularly like the rap sections of the play, however I found those to be a fun and unique way for the audience to see inside of the characters heads instead of just monologues. If I am remembering correctly, for the most part, the raps were just thoughts the characters had and not actual things they were saying out loud. I think the raps provided a clear distinction between internal and external conversations. Something that really stuck with me when I saw this show was the very last scene. I can't quite remember all of the details exactly, but I remember the last scene being a very genuine conversation with his father telling him all of the details of his childhood to help Nguyen write his play. I found this moment a good change of pace from the comedy of the show and it really showed who the playwright is as a person, how he went about writing this story, and what it really means to him which is something I feel I don't see all that much.
I was lucky enough to see Vietgone when it was at The Seattle Repertory Theatre in association with OSF in 2016. I really enjoyed the production when I saw it live, especially the way Nguyen uses humor to tell an ultimately sad story about his parents and their experiences during and after the Vietnam war. I found the way he used English that flowed to represent Vietnamese and the choppy English to represent English was very interesting and like the author of the article said it really did make the audience think of the American people as the outsiders and it really makes them connect and identify with the Vietnamese people and their story. I know the author of this article did not particularly like the rap sections of the play, however, I found those to be a fun and unique way for the audience to see inside of the characters heads instead of just monologues. If I am remembering correctly, for the most part, the raps were just thoughts the characters had and not actual things they were saying out loud. I think the raps provided a clear distinction between internal and external conversations. Something that really stuck with me when I saw this show was the very last scene. I can't quite remember all of the details exactly, but I remember the last scene being a very genuine conversation with his father telling him all of the details of his childhood to help Nguyen write his play. I found this moment a good change of pace from the comedy of the show and it really showed who the playwright is as a person, how he went about writing this story, and what it really means to him which is something I feel I don't see all that much. (my post came up as anonymous before, so I'm posting it again with my name)
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