Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Lauren Yee’s ambitious, uneven CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND succeeds as a variation on Scheherazade’s tales

• By drediman
• February 27, 2020
• No Comments

Courtney Reed and Joe Ngo in Signature Theatre Company’s production of “Cambodian Rock Band” by Lauren Yee at the Pershing Square Signature Center. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band opened Off-Broadway this week via the Signature Theatre Company at the Pershing Square Signature Center. Over the last year or so, the play has been making its rounds at some of the country’s major regional theaters (e.g., La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Victory Gardens Theater) prior to finally making its New York debut. The piece is in essence a memory play – set in Cambodia, it switches back and forth between 2008 and various points during the 1970s – that tells the distressing story of one man’s survival in a dire labor camp during the height of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime.

There’s no denying the ambitious scope of Ms. Yee’s work — a meaty play with much music — which thematically explores notions of the strength of familial ties, the consequences of true betrayal, the power of storytelling, and the tough road to redemption. The play boasts a clever, complex structure which, like Scheherazade’s legendary tales, unfolds only to reveal unexpected depth, as well as the moral ambiguities underlying the human experience (particularly under duress). Unfortunately, although colorfully-written, the characters themselves don’t have the same depth and complexity as the play’s construction. And although I think the rich catalogue of rock songs supplied by Dengue Fever is downright seductive, much of the time they stop the plot dead in its tracks, thereby unnecessarily expanding the play’s running time to nearly three hours in length.

The production has been somewhat unevenly directed by Chay Yew, the outgoing artistic director of Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater, who handles the play’s many requirements with muscular efficiency, if lacking in poetry and a firm point of view. The performances he draws from his hardworking cast – who sensationally double as a legit Cambodian rock band (the thrilling lead vocals by Aladdin‘s Courtney Reed are to die for) – are undeniably passionate, if also overwrought and obvious. The most interesting characterization comes from veteran actor Francis Jue, whose sinuous Mephistophelian performance as both the play’s narrator and villain nearly runs off with the show.

RECOMMENDED

CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND
Off-Broadway Play
2 hours, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Signature Theatre Company / Pershing Square Signature Center
Through March 22