Forcing myself out of bed earlier than I wanted to on a Saturday morning I undertook the 6 hour trek up to Ashland for a week of what will hopefully be great theater. This evening I saw the first play from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a contemporary piece called Vietgone. It took place in the smaller, intimate, Thomas Theatre. It was billed as a comedy, but it was really much deeper, following how the playwright’s parents got together after meeting in an American refugee camp after the fall of Saigon.[Trailer] It was very well done, highlighting the cultural differences between the Vietnamese and Americans in humorous ways. But it also poignantly showed the impact of the war and the fall of Saigon on the Vietnamese people, as well as a fresh perspective (from a Vienamese point of view) of the value of having tried to prosecute the war. A very interesting and moving first play of the week.
One fun aspect was a a prop element being a 1970s era Yamaha enduro. An interesting surprise, I ran into Kim Cupps who was sitting in my row. This was her last of 5 plays on a visit with her family. Small world …