Jennifer Ikeda, Raymond Lee             photos by Carol Rosegg

 

 

 

                           By Eugene Paul

 

With great gusto,  ribaldry rampant, rollicking humor and a painfully savage message, playwright Qui Nguyen revisits the Vietnam War and its aftermath through the  experiences of its  war tossed victims, at least those tossed into the United States, and the picture isn’t pretty but it’s a helluva lot better than the alternative.  After all, it’s the living who get to write their histories. With this kind of make do bravado, we have the loves and lives of nineteen  inimitable characters happily bombarded at us by five enormously talented, fearless performers and it doesn’t seem like enough.  Or too much.

 

Jennifer Ikeda, Raymond Lee, Samantha Quan

 

Come to think of it, with gorgeous Jennifer Ikeda having her hands full playing  only Tong, a gorgeous and not too hapless Vietnamese refugee cosseting her horny widow  mother, Huong (splendid Samantha Quan who also performs six other roles) – and heart throb Raymond Lee playing only Quang, who ends up inadvertently in the U.S. it seems that three actors were all of seventeen other people. I enjoyed every one. Right from the start when the playwright Qui Nguyen comes out and tells us to tamp down our cell phones – you know the drill – only it isn’t Qui Nguyen at all, it’s Paco Tolson playing him and six other dudes as we go along but he does set us up nicely.

 

 He explains Tim Mackabee’s set – sort of—since it changes so often thanks to Jared Mezzochi’s wild, comic book projections placing us in umpteen locations and a flock of years between 1968 and 2016. And kind of gets us going, jumping from our starting point in Arkansas back to Vietnam and utter chaos. Comic book style.  Cannot stress that enough. It not only works, it triggers our responses just the way the playwright wants. Quanng, married, with two kids, plying his helicopter to get out refugees, is one ply short: he cannot get back to rescue his family. He’s trapped on a carrier going to the states. thanks to the good advice of his best bud, Nhan (brashly wonderful Jon Hoche) and ends up in Arkansas at Fort Chafee, where, golly gee, Tong and her mother have been filed into bunk beds, some kind of strange American contraptions.

 

Raymond Lee, Paco Tolson

 

But playwright Nguyen has no qualms about using anything he finds handy to tell his story, hence the jumps you’re going to jump through throughout, when Quang, determined to get back to his family and save them decides to promote a motorcycle and get to California to get a ship going to Vietnam.  Best bud Nham isn’t going to let him do this. And when Quang tears himself away from his new flame, Tong, which isn’t easy, to make the trip, Nhan hops on the bike, too.  Along the way, they discover Hippies, Bikers and cowboys, all seen through Vietnamese eyes.  And somehow or other, Quang breaks into what was once known as  a soliloquy but now is a hip hop riff with extra miking and a strong beat and a melody line, in a strong solo light. Usually with blue language anachronistically pouring out of him. It doesn’t really work.

 

But director May Adrales is nothing if not faithful to her playwright’s good intentions and stages full bore. Hip hop soliloquies it is.  Or they are.  And doesn’t Tong get to stand and deliver in the same way.  But not the other seventeen characters, I am happy to say. Because hip hop with its strong rhythm and rhyme commitments primary takes the edge off the emotional content, if there is emotional content. Reducing impact. Whereupon all that emphasis on colorful characters and sex and cuteness and sex and blam blam blam of the comic book settings projected – and sex –become the driving force of the show.  Not the basic story.  Not until the bitter end. When the play begins to delve into its real heart. And those wonderful players are up to it.  I admired Raymond Lee as Quang in old age more than I can say.

 

Anthony Tran did just fine with the costumes, Justin Townsend did just fine with his lighting, Shane Rettig did just fine with his music and sound design, and Paco Tolson did just fine as playwright grandson who was trying to pump his grandfather, Quang, for stories about the Vietnam War, and got more than he bargained for. Which was very good for us. Nothing like the awful truth after fun and games.

                                                         

Vietgone. At City Center Stage 1, 131 West 55^th Street. Tickets: $90. Discounts.212-518-1212. 2 hrs, 20 min. Thru Dec. 4.