Preview Thoughts on Cambodian Rock Band

I am a big fan of playwright Lauren Yee (I know her a bit and like her a lot) and I have been looking forward to seeing her play Cambodian Rock Band for seemingly forever.  It has played in regional theaters around the country, to much acclaim, and it has finally landed in New York, at my favorite spot, Signature Theatre.  Of course, all signs pointing to my having a grand theatrical experience, and I did.  OH, I DID.  So as to not bury the lede, I say to you: GET YOUR TICKETS NOW.  This is a play you do not want to miss - its storytelling is unique and the story itself is heartbreaking and hopeful.  That kind of play doesn't come along every day.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Since the play is still in previews, I'll only offer a few thoughts (other than GET YOUR TICKETS NOW).  Cambodian Rock Band takes place in 2008, but flashes back to 1975/1978, during the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime.  We meet a woman working on the war crimes trials and her efforts to bring perpetrators to justice, and we meet her father, who was in Cambodia during the war and is desperately trying to bring his daughter home, for reasons of his own.  The story is about fathers and daughters, about the hard choices we are sometimes forced to make, and about the power and redemptive quality of music (and art/artists).  The story is also told through music, mainly the songs of the band Dengue Fever, an L.A.-based band of Cambodian-American musicians doing covers of Cambodian music in a blend of sixties Cambodian pop and psychedelic rock.  The rock concert atmosphere is an exciting way to both celebrate the power of music and a tragic way of reminding us that so many artists were lost during the genocide in Cambodia.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Throughout Cambodian Rock Band, Lauren Yee blends the funny, sad, powerful, moving, and horrifying into a thrilling theatrical experience that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.  This cast is simply incredible - they not only handle the complex emotions of the scenework, but they also play the fictional band Cyclos; the band figures in the story itself and they also present the Dengue Fever/Khmer music to fantastic effect.  Everyone is wonderful, most especially Francis Jue, long one of my favorite actors, who plays our narrator, of sorts, and he has a moment where he becomes part of the story and you just...gasp.  He's fabulous, as always.  As is Joe Ngo, who helped craft the play a bit and shared with Lauren some stories from his life as the child of Cambodian work camp survivors - he has such range and empathy.  Oh, well, the whole cast is great.  I don't want to say much more, since part of the joy of Cambodian Rock Band is the element of surprise; you think you're in for one kind of performance and then it becomes something totally different.  I laughed a lot, I cried A LOT and I got up to dance during the curtain call.  It was truly thrilling; I simply adored it and can't wait to go back with a co-worker later in the run.  If you want to read more about the play and background, there's a terrific piece online about Lauren, written by the wonderful Diep Tran (you can read that piece on Broadway.Com).  I highly recommend you check out that article and Cambodian Rock Band.  Tickets are going fast and it's a show you should not miss. 

Seat neighbor-wise: ugh.  The people behind me were simply hateful.  Please, please don't let me become like them when I become an old NY theatergoer.  They criticized the storytelling, they criticized the acting, they criticized the AUTHENTICITY, which just made my blood boil.  All because, I think, they took a bus tour once through Cambodia, which made them experts.  Not because they were actually Cambodian, mind you.  It was just the supercilious, condescending, crazy-privilege nonsense that I despise.  I almost yelled at them about the five-block rule, but instead I just slouched in my seat and covered my ears.  They never did get the hint.  There was one leader, who made most of the heinous remarks, and there was one follower, who kept saying "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah" like the seagulls in Finding Nemo (in case you were wondering about the photo at left).  Unfun people.  And the ladies beside me, god love them, were also annoying as all get out.  One of them kept asking everyone in the row if the show had an intermission, even though the ushers told us and it was in the program.  I guess she just couldn't be bothered.  The other had a bad hip, which I understand can be extremely unpleasant, but you should buy yourself an aisle seat if you think you're going to have a problem sitting through a show (I was on the aisle, because I bought it for myself to stretch my bad foot).  At an important point during the first act, she got up to leave because she needed to stand up, so I missed some dialogue, which annoyed me, but I figured it wasn't her fault.  At the end of intermission, her friend apologized and said it might happen again in the second act, at which time I was assured it wouldn't and that the bad hip lady would stand the entire second act.  Well, yeah, until she decided it was time to go home, so she came over, leaned over me, to talk to her friend and say goodnight it was time to leave!  During a CRUCIAL moment in the show!  I was so mad!  There was a talkback after the performance (and it was fantastic - Francis Jue was also incredibly amazing just talking about the play as himself), and I was thisclose to asking them to please just run through their lines from that scene!  Oh my god, ordinarily, the audience at the Signature is well-behaved, but these people were off the charts.  Good thing I found the show to be completely amazing, or they might've absolutely ruined my evening.  Thankfully, once again, great theater saved me from making a bad situation worse.  Though, if I run into them again, I might not be so forgiving...