by Linda Chin

“Vietgone” – Written by Qui Nguyen. Michelle Aguillon, Director; Kadahj Bennett, Music Director; Misha Shields, Choreographer; Jessie Baxter, Dramaturg; Jasmine Brooks, Assistant Director; Jessica Scout Malone; Assistant Dramaturg & Intimacy Coach; Izmir Ickbal, Scenic & Projections Designer; Debra Kim Sivigny, Costume Designer; Jennifer Fok, Lighting Designer; Aubrey Dube, Sound Designer; Kelly Smith, Properties Designer; Nate DeMare, Technical Director; Jadira Figueroa, Assistant Stage Manager. Presented by Company One at the BCA Black Box Theater, 539 Tremont St., Boston in partnership with Pao Art Center through May 25.

Once upon a time shortly after the fall of Saigon in 1975, a strong and handsome 30-year old Vietnamese man named Quang and a strong and beautiful 30-year old Vietnamese woman named Tong fled their war-torn country and journeyed over 8000 miles to a land in the “middle of nowhere” called Arkansas, crossing paths for the very first time at a relocation center for evacuees. Except for their respective travel companions-turned-bunkmates (Quang’s best bud Nhan and Tong’s martyr-ish mom Huong) everything and everyone seemed foreign. Even though the meals included “too much meat” and the environs were not as “super nice” as “what was advertised” they came to accept that navigating and adapting to unfamiliar territory was part of their journey. For refugees, however, the stress-inducing immigration and assimilation processes are compounded by traumatic memories of violence, persecution and what they left behind. Tong, Huong, and Nhan are determined to give it a go but Quang, devastated about losing his family and country and wary of Americans’ negative attitudes towards “refugees who look like me/peeps reminding them of their enemy,” is determined to get home.

Read more “Company One’s ‘Vietgone’: Stereotype-busting Superheroes”