Cambodian Rock Band - Merrimack Repertory Theatre

Photo Credit: Liz Lauren courtesy of Victory Gardens

Cambodian Rock Band - Merrimack Repertory Theatre

Review by James Wilkinson

Cambodian Rock Band is presented by Merrimack Repertory Theatre. Written by Lauren Yee. Featuring songs by Dengue Fever. Directed by Marti Lyons. Scenic Designer: Yu Shibagaki. Costume Designer: Izumi Inaba. Lighting Designer: Keith Parham. Sound Designer: Mikhail Fiskel.

I really didn’t want to go to the theater the night I went to Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s production of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band. It had been a long, exhausting week at my day job. The weather looked like it was going to take a turn for the worse and the theater was a bit of the drive from my house. I was in the process of trying to craft some kind of excuse when I finally said “screw it” and hit the road. I had been looking forward to seeing Merrimack’s production for a while and this was the only weekend when I could catch it. There are times when even just the potential of seeing something interesting is enough to get me out of the house and I was crossing my fingers that Cambodian Rock Band was one of those ‘looks promising’ productions that pays off. 

God damn, does the show deliver….

There’s something exhilarating when you hit on something this good. It feeds the soul. Five minutes in, my bad mood had dissipated. By the end of act one I was completely enthralled. Lauren Lee’s wonderful play cracks open the Cambodian genocide via the story of one of its survivors and it does so with vibrating energy of a guitar riff blaring out of a stadium speaker. Rock and roll has always had a special attraction for the young and with good reason. On some level we all seem to instinctively know that the thrum of a guitar and the wild pounding rhythm of the drums represents a kind of spiritual freedom. It’s loose. It’s wild. It doesn’t follow the strict rules of what we’re told respectable music is. It’s this energy that Cambodian Rock Band manages to tap into. It understands how valuable that freedom is. At the end of act one (quite possibly the most powerful end of act one I’ve seen on stage this year), the titular rock band hears the approach of Pol Pot’s regime and with nothing left to lose, they pick up their instruments and begin to play. For a moment the two sides are engaged in sonic warfare, each trying to come out on top. One moment we hear the helicopters. Then the band drowns them out. The music dips and then we hear marching army. It’s the sight of the young fighting a losing battle as best they can against a terrifying and inevitable future.

But I am getting ahead of myself…

Cambodian Rock Band begins as the story Neary (Aja Wiltshire), a young American woman in Cambodia during 2008. She’s working for the legal team that will begin prosecuting one of Pol Pot’s generals for crimes against humanity and has recently uncovered the photograph of a prison camp survivor that could potentially act as a witness in the upcoming trial. She just has to track him down. In the middle of the hunt, her father, Chum, (Greg Watanabe), who was born and raised in Cambodia before immigrating to the United States, makes a surprise appearance. He claims that he’s come because he wants to spend the upcoming new year holiday with his daughter. From there, after a few revelations, (one or two of which you can probably guess), the story takes a left from a more lighthearted beginning to fall down a much deeper, darker rabbit hole. The plot jumps back to the days just before Pol Pot’s regime gains power and follows the story of how Chum and the rock band he was a part of survived (or perished) in those devastating years. I’m afraid that I only have a basic understanding of what happened in the Cambodian genocide, so I’ll leave the history for other more knowledgeable than me to comment on. But I will say that one of the things I think Yee’s play gets right is that the people in history never think that they’re in history. It’s a kind of painful naivete that some will pay for.

“Playful” probably isn’t a word you expect to hear associated with a play about a genocide, but I’m going to go ahead and use it because I do think there’s something wonderfully playful in Yee’s approach. She gets the sick jokes that forces like the Khmer Rouge operate on. It’s the type of bureaucratic nightmare that was Kafka’s bread and butter. You want to laugh at the ridiculous nature of it, but you can’t you’re too frozen in horror at what you’re seeing. One of those sick jokes lies at the heart of this play, (one where a conversation had in the 70s comes to fruition in 2008), and several other scattered throughout the work. The material almost demands it and Yee runs with the set up/punchline structure that allows her to keep confounding our expectations. Her narrative keeps interrupting itself and switching gears. Characters become self-aware. The real-life history seeps in. The point of view gets hijacked by different characters. It’s this kind of oscillation between objectives that keeps the play so wonderfully alive.

Under Marti Lyon’s direction, Merrimack Rep’s production plugs into the play’s rock and roll rhythm. Greg Watanabe does something rather wonderful with his role as Chum. The part requires a lot of him technically as he has to play both sides of the age spectrum, but what’s more impressive (and touching) is the incredible emotional intensity that he’s able to tap into. The character is somewhat ridiculous when he first appears, (something that put me, as a white person in a mostly white audience a little on guard), but I think this ends up being necessary to part of what Yee is attempting to do. Yes, the character may start off appearing a bit ridiculous (and Watanabe gets the laughs), but then we dig into the human that’s there. As the character becomes more and more complex in our eyes, Watanabe’s performance grows all the more devastating. One of the show’s quieter moments had him plucking a guitar to the tune of a Dylan classic and all our eyes are locked on him. Dylan’s words never sounded so emotionally laid bare.

“Music’s for grooving, man” Janis Joplin once said. She knew better than anyone. You get lost in a good song. There are moments in Cambodian Rock Band when the cast is performing the original music by Dengue Fever and you’re content to let the rhythm wash over you like the colored lights spinning across the stage. It doesn’t matter that the song is in a language you don’t speak, that you have no idea what they’re singing about. The emotion shines through. It hits you in the gut. You’ve found your moment of freedom. 

Cambodian Rock Band is presented by and at Merrimack Repertory Theatre October 16-November 10, 2019.

For tickets and more information, visit their website: www.mrt.org

Want to be notified when new reviews are posted? Consider signing up for our Email List Here