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09/18/2019
By HOLLY JOHNSON // Something unusual at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, an exquisite compelling play loaded with Pop and Psychedelic Rock sounds live onstage
Oregon Shakespeare Festival has an unusual hit on its hands. A personal story, a searing, violent mystery and a flood of amazing Cambodian/American music embody “Cambodian Rock Band,” an exquisite compelling play loaded with Pop and Psychedelic Rock sounds live onstage. It is currently in performance (through October) at the Thomas theater in Ashland, and tickets are going fast.
The numbers , performed by the actors, are taken from the Cambodian-American Rock group Dengue Fever out of Southern California. The group inspired Lauren Yee to write the play after she heard them at a music festival in Long Beach. Music and all the arts were forbidden during the Pol Pot regime of genocide, and at the time that country had groups that imitated the ‘60s and ‘70s sounds of America, from the Supremes to Jimi Hendrix. Playwright Yee has made good use of this powerful musical movement as a constant backdrop, as she takes us back and forth from the late ‘70s (during Pol Pot’s barbaric era) to 2008, when the music enjoys a revival.
Neary (played by Brooke Ishibashi, who’s also the lead vocalist) is a young woman trying to find a missing person from the ‘70s, an individual who survived the massive killings by the vicious Khmer Rouge government between 1975 and 1979. When she discovers it is actually her edgy, wisecracking father Chum (played to perfection by Joe Ngo), the story unravels. His crime? Playing the electric guitar.
His flashback scenes in prison take place with a smooth-talking tormentor Duch (Daiske Tsuji) who has some serious problems of his own.
As program notes pointed out, we don’t see a lot of plays about Cambodians and their history, yet the Khmer Rouge has been called one of the worst genocides in history. This is important history: We need to be reminded of it. How these people found refuge on American shores is vital to the play.
The six-member cast of Asian-American actors work tightly together on the intimate stage. They take time to emotionally react to on another. They listen to one another. Then suddenly they morph into a passionate rock band. Their acting is spotless, and so is their musicianship.
Although OSF got a head start, the two-and-a-half hour play will be performed in La Jolla, New York and in Portland next spring.