Page 4
July 31, 2019
Inspiring Homage to a Destroyed Culture, History
o PinionAted
J udge
by
D Arleen o rtegA
once the regime made listening to
Western-influenced music punish-
able by death.
A more typical approach would
have been a play where people
talked about the musicians and the
playful and also full of longing,
and the cast helps us feel in our
bodies the joy and energy that an-
imated this lost artistic movement.
A standout among this extremely
talented group is Joe Ngo, who
met Yee while the play was in de-
velopment and was cast to play
a side character in an early draft.
Ngo’s own parents survived the
Khmer Rouge and, unlike most
survivors of such trauma, had
shared with him stories of the
The Oregon Shakespeare Theater’s current production of “Cambodian Rock Band” is about the pop
rock scene in Cambodia before it was destroyed during the Khmer Rouge genocide of the late 1970s.
The play inspires homage to a lost culture and history, and incorporates songs by Dengue Fever, a
Los Angeles based band whose lead singer was born in Cambodia and represents the vibrant music
scene that disappeared.
music was heard only in record-
ings. But Yee built something dif-
ferent. She and her collaborators
found talented performers to cre-
ate a rock band like the ones who
were wiped out, and to arrange and
play songs by Dengue Fever and
against a former Khmer Rouge
official. That family story offers a
window into the sort of secrets that
survivors of war often carry with-
out telling their children.
The music does much of the
heavy lifting in this play--it is
atrocities they had experienced
and witnessed. The experiences
of Ngo and his family informed
the way play took shape, offering
audiences humorous and painful
insights into the divides between
generations that can be compli-
cated to traverse. In the show’s
first production at South Coast
Repertory Theater and again at
OSF, Ngo plays the lead character,
Chum, both as an older man in his
50s and also his younger self, who
played in a band and was tortured
in a labor camp. Ngo digs deep to
offer a performance that is funny
and strong and playful and desper-
ate, a clear homage to his own par-
ents and to a legacy that deserves
respect and celebration.
Another pivotal character is
Duch, based on a real-life Khmer
Rouge official who was head of a
prison where almost 20,000 peo-
ple were tortured and killed. Char-
ismatic and “utterly utterly charm-
ing” as played by Daisuke Tsuji,
Duch is our guide to the dark side,
to the questions about how and
why these tragic events could ever
have happened--as are Chum and
a friend and former bandmate,
Leng (Moses Villarama), whom
he unexpectedly encounters in the
prison. What would you do to sur-
vive? How does war change what
people are capable of? And who
are they afterwards?
It all comes together in a work
of art so compelling that I have
experienced it five times, and ex-
pect to experience it several more.
To me, theater like this feels holy;
with each performance, these art-
ists resurrect the fallen, animate
what the darkness attempted to
kill. I recently read that Dengue
Fever’s lead singer Nimol believes
that the murdered musicians of
Cambodia’s pop rock heyday sur-
round her when she is onstage too.
I don’t doubt that such things are
possible because I have sensed it
in this production--and the chance
to learn and pay homage as a
member of the audience of “Cam-
bodian Rock Band” is something I
have come to treasure.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on
the Oregon Court of Appeals and
the first woman of color to serve
in that capacity. Her movie review
column Opinionated Judge ap-
pears regularly in The Portland
Observer.
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Until I saw the marvelous play,
“Cambodian Rock Band,” run-
ning until October at the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, I
had no idea about the exciting pop
rock scene that flourished in Cam-
bodia just before its magic was ut-
terly destroyed during the Khmer
Rouge genocide in 1975 to 1979.
Like the former Khmer Rouge
official whose trial 30 years later
becomes a focus of some of the
play’s events, the stories of that
erased music and of the survivors
of that genocide have been hiding
in plain sight. We cultivate so lit-
tle curiosity about what we could
learn from our refugee neighbors
and friends and, even in our own
families, we know so little about
the traumas experienced by loved
ones separated by even a genera-
tion. We don’t know how to look,
and we don’t think to ask.
This play offers an often exhila-
rating, frequently funny, and deep-
ly moving encounter with some of
what we have been missing about
Cambodian culture and history. A
family story, a musical explora-
tion, and a plunge into the heart of
darkness all in one, the play offers
audiences several ways into sto-
ries that enrich and inspire.
Music was the way that play-
wright Lauren Yee found into this
context, via a band called Den-
gue Fever. The band is based in
Los Angeles and specializes in
Cambodian pop and psychedelic
rock. Its lead singer, Chhom Ni-
mol, was born in Cambodia and
is still beloved there. Inspired by
Dengue Fever’s music, Yee sought
to build a play around the nearly
extinguished musical and histori-
cal legacy which the band draws
from; the Khmer Rouge killed
an estimated 90% of Cambodian
artists, and the country’s vibrant
music scene suddenly disappeared
prominent Cambodian artists who
influenced the musical moment
that was crushed in the 1970s. She
then built the story around a fic-
tional band of young people filled
with excitement and hope, and
then explores the tragic events that
befell them. Their story is punc-
tuated by the story of one of the
band’s members who is returning
to Cambodia for the first time 40
years later, as his U.S.-born daugh-
ter is gathering criminal evidence