"Khmer Rock"
Imagine, if you will, a Holocaust drama about a Jewish
klezmer band, in which one of the musicians, failing to flee the oncoming Nazis
in time, ends up in a concentration camp, where he’s tortured under the
supervision of an Eichmann-like authority. Then imagine that this dire
situation is surrounded by a heavy infusion of rambunctious, even joyous klezmer
music, ending with a festive, musical explosion in which the audience is up on
its feet, dancing at its seats, arms waving, as if watching a concert at the
Beacon.
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| Courtney Reed (C) and company. All photos: Joan Marcus. |
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| Courtney Reed, Joe Ngo. |
The musician at its heart, Chum (Joe Ngo), is a
guitarist in a Cambodian rock band, the Cyclos, and the music that they play, coming
from several sources, is mainly from the playbook of Dengue Fever. That’s
the overheated name of an acclaimed American band that originated in the 1990s doing
covers of Cambodian rock from the pre-Khmer Rouge days, the original musicians
having died or disappeared during the mass slaughters and detentions.
Yee’s two-act play, whose script declares “some of
this really happened,” at first seems a condensed introduction to the Khmer
Rouge’s bloody period of power, from 1975-1979. Her dramaturgic hook is the
return in 2008 to Cambodia of Chum, who eventually fled to America, where he
and his wife raised a daughter, Neary (Courtney Reed, Aladdin).
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| Company of Cambodian Rock Band. |
Chum’s return is related to Neary’s work for the International Center for
Transitional Justice, concerned with war crimes. She’s investigating the
deeds of a Khmer Rouge leader known as Duch, responsible for the deaths of
20,000 at the notorious S-21 prison, once a school, now a museum. Seven people are
known to have survived but evidence of an eighth has come to light, and Neary
needs to find that person. Dad doesn’t think this a good idea.
Act one, set both in 2008 and 1975, sets up the
background by educating the audience about the Khmer Rouge’s atrocities, as
well as its socially and technologically oppressive ideology (a ban on music
was one of its lesser restrictions). Artists and intellectuals were considered no
better than dust. At the same time, it establishes—often through broad comic
strokes—the father-daughter relationship between Chum and Neary that opens a
door into the past revealing what Chum endured. Linda Cho’s costumes precisely
capture each period’s look, especially those of the bell-bottomed, polyester 70s.
Finally, it presents Chum’s psychedelic surf rock band
finishing its one and only album just before the Khmer Rouge takes power. The
act is so concerned with exposition, though, that it’s easy to wonder where its
dramatic heart is. (Another seven songs—including Dylan’s “The Times They Are
A-Changin”—are heard in act two.)
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| Moses Villarama, Francis Jue. |
Reed, who also plays Neary, is star-quality good as Sothea,
the lead singer, both because of her considerable charisma and beauty (her sinuous
hand and arm movements based on Cambodian dance will light many fires) and her
stunning vocals.
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| Joe Ngo, Abraham Kim, Francis Jue, Courtney Reed, Moses Villarama. |
Weaving the present-day events together with the past,
and providing the show with a theatrically inviting premise, is Duch himself,
played as a Cabaret-like host by
Francis Jue (Soft Power), addressing
us directly with a fascinating blend of insinuating panache, sardonic humor,
and wicked charm. He even mocks words like “genocide.”
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| Moses Villarama, Joe Ngo, Courtney Reed, Abraham Kim. |
In act two, however, he takes on a far darker tone as
the set assumes the look of an interrogation room, with Duch ripping off his
emcee persona and exposing his insidious side in confrontations with Chum. Like
Adolf Eichmann,
he’ll fall back on the excuse that he “was just following orders.” Chum, for
his part, will have his own guilty secrets to deal with.
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| Francis Jue. |
Chay Yew’s lively direction swings back and forth
between bold theatricality and basic realism, although the former generally
gets the edge. Joe Ngo—himself a son of Khmer Rouge survivors—gives a dynamic
performance as Chum. (He’s played it in two previous productions.) He starts
off, though, with such clownish behavior that, in contrast to the grounded
personality of Reed’s Courtney, it borders on annoying. However, when, over the
arc of the performance, you watch the demands placed upon the actor—who also
must be an expert musician—you forgive the early exaggeration and applaud him
for sculpting an unforgettable portrait.
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| Joe Ngo, Francis Jue. |
Yee’s language is always vibrantly alive, and, while
her plotting is sometimes awkward and contrived (the story depends on a huge
coincidence), she nevertheless manages to compel attention throughout its two
hours and 15 minutes. Cambodian Rock Band
maintains its entertainment value while making a significant contribution
to educating audiences about the Khmer Rouge’s carnage, including footnotes on
America’s own responsibility for what happened.
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| Joe Ngo, Francis Jue. |
Cambodian
Rock Band is hard to categorize, however, since its music—like what
you’d hear in certain jukebox musicals—is unconnected to its story; many lyrics
are actually in Cambodian. Even with 13 numbers, it’s hard to call it a
musical. Whatever you call it, you won’t soon forget it.
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| Company of Cambodian Rock Band. |
I admit to having felt a bit uncomfortable at joining
in the celebratory finale (Jue, dashing among the audience as the music blasted
away, gave me, of all people, a cowbell to beat) but I also felt I’d been
present at a work of raw theatrical power. Unquestionably, Cambodian Rock Band rocks.
Pershing Square Signature Center/Irene Diamond Stage
480 W. 42nd St., NYC
Through March 22
