OKC staging of rollicking rom-com road trip 'Vietgone' delights in smashing stereotypes
A rollicking rom-com road trip, Oklahoma City Repertory Theater's production of "Vietgone" roars into Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, souped up on comic-book style, uproarious comedy and ninja attacks.
For all its frantic fun, though, it's the heartbreakingly human and honest way that the show shares its characters' Vietnamese refugee stories — particularly the astonishingly insightful finale — that delivers a powerful zap to the heart and resounding pow to the head.
Oklahoma City Repertory Theater, aka OKC Rep, is closing its 2023-2024 main stage season with Qui Nguyen's "Vietgone," playing through March 9 at Oklahoma Contemporary's Te Ata Theater.
Here's what you need to know about the wildly entertaining show:
What is the Off-Broadway hit 'Vietgone' about?
Set in 1975 after the fall of Saigon has ended the Vietnam War, "Vietgone" is billed as an "all-American love story about two very new Americans."
An award-winning playwright, Nguyen uses the play to convey an irreverent, loving and outlandishly fictionalized version of his parents' refugee stories — even as the show opens with a version of the author (portrayed by multitalented Edmond actor Ashley J. Mandanas) cheekily swearing that all the characters the audience is about to meet are totally fictional and that any resemblance to real people, especially his parents, is a completely coincidental.
Told in fast-paced nonlinear fashion, "Vietgone" follows Quang (Daniel May), an American-trained helicopter pilot in the South Vietnam Air Force. During the chaotic fall of Saigon, he ferries dozens of his countrymen to the safety of waiting U.S. Navy ships, but he is forced to leave behind his wife and two young children.
Haunted by his guilt, Quang is shipped to a Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, resettlement camp, where he crosses paths with Tong (Amanda Le Nguyen), a smart, sexy and sharp-tongued fellow refugee who feels signficantly less remorse about leaving her whiny would-be fiance (Mandanas again) behind in Vietnam.
That's not to say that Tong doesn't have her regrets: A U.S. Embassy employee, she got two tickets out of Vietnam, and her beloved younger brother Khue (Jang) refused to abandon the love of his life. Instead, he insisted that Tong evacuate their overbearing mother Huong (Jenelle Chu), even though she didn't want to go.
At Fort Chaffee, Huong makes her disdain for American life loudly known, and she and Quang bond over their mutual longing to return to their homeland. And sparks fly when he meets Tong, despite her determination to build the kind of life in the United States that she couldn't in Vietnam as an outspoken, independently minded woman.
Despite his undeniable chemistry with Tong, Quang fixes up a rusty old motorcycle and sets off with his best pal, the geekily good-natured Nhan (Zion Jang), on a road trip to California with the hopes of making his way back to Vietnam.
Along the way, he and Nhan encounter a Confederate flag-flying biker, a pair of long-haired hippies and even a couple of masked ninjas. Edward T. Morris' striking scenic and projection designs keep the show on track as it roams to 30 different locations and jumps back and forth in time.
How does 'Vietgone' incorporate rap and smash stereotypes?
Directed by Nikki DiLoreto, OKC Rep's production of the Off-Broadway hit features an entirely Asian American cast of five able performers — with Mandanas, Chu and Jang ably taking on multiple roles — along with several Asian Americans on the creative team and crew.
Immediately smashing stereotypes of Asians as weak and milquetoast, the "Vietgone" is packed with plenty of 1970s-style sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Showing off his emotional range, May plays Quang as a brave, noble and appealing hero, while Amanda Le Nguyen proves a charismatic leading lady as the confidently feminist Tong, who is sexually liberated and capable of taking care of herself and her mother.
Cleverly striking back at America's sordid stage and screen history of putting white actors in yellowface to play Asian roles, the playwright has all "Vietgone's" white side characters portrayed with deliberately over-the-top gusto by members of the Asian American cast.
Hilariously, the show establishes early on that the Vietnamese characters speak perfect English with no heavy accents and spot-on slang, while the white Americans communicate in a broken dialect punctuated by shouty nonsense like "french fries, tater tots, cholesterol!"
An award-winning pioneer of "geek theater" — pop culture-infused action-adventure stories with heroes who are people of color, women and/or LGBTQ — Nguyen playfully works in a charming dance sequence, kung-fu fighting and a classic outlaw country hit.
He also makes the boldly anachronistic choice to incorporate rap into much of "Vietgone," from the opening scenes of Quang spitting profanity-laced rhymes while steering a motorcycle down the open road.
Featuring original music by Shane Rettig, the show's centerpiece is an emotional recurring hip-hop duet between Quang and Tong about the meaning of home. The raps aren't as refined as those in "Hamilton" — which, like "Vietgone," debuted in 2015 — but they effectively lay out the characters' inner thoughts for the audience.
Oklahoma City has a large Vietnamese American population, and our neighbors deserve to see themselves on stage in an engaging and imaginative show like "Vietgone," which has already spun off the first of two planned sequels.
But "Vietgone" is an all-American show with the potential to delight teens and adults who don't have an aversion to f-bombs, hookups and too-real insights into the complexities and costs of war.
'VIETGONE'
When: Feb. 29-March 9.
Where: Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center's Te Ata Theater, 11 NW 11.
Tickets: https://www.okcrep.org/vietgone.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Irreverent refugee rom-com 'Vietgone' delights in OKC show: What to know
