Boats On A River

By Tom LaVenture
Asian American Press

“Julie wants to show how Americans failed in Cambodia, and the Asian characters are the backdrop”

MINNEAPOLIS – When Playwright Julie Marie Myatt was commissioned through the Guthrie's New Play Program, she took the Bush Foundation global perspective initiative grant to focus on the plight of Cambodian children that are forced into the sex trade. She took two trips to the country, where she met with victims and the international volunteers that work to help the survivors attempt to rebuild their lives.

The theatrical result was a play that not only shows how difficult it is for survivors to pick up their lives and move on; it focuses on the volunteers who either have, or don’t have what it takes to face unimaginable horrors and help other find hope from hopelessness.

To prepare for two trips to Cambodia, Myatt trained at a counseling center for sexually abused kids in Los Angeles. The, going to Cambodia and living in the heat with the counselors and the victims, she absorbed the culture and the reality of the children. She said this experience could not have been replicated, imagined or intellectualized without being there. The play includes video footage that the playwright shot while in Cambodia.

“This demanded that I become more personally involved,” Myatt added.

Boats on a River Director Michael Bigelow Dixon, who is also director of the Studio Theater Programming at the Guthrie Theater, said the New Play Program was an opportunity to take a journey that will possibly change their lives as much as inspire a new play.

He is pleased with Boats on a River for its exploration of what makes it possible for people to continue doing humanitarian work, and of the incredible courage and steadfastness and how people can reach their limits.

“The self-knowledge of their own limitations and tolerance for failure and the bottomless reservoir of faith that they need to look at the worst circumstances of life and the cruelest humanity possible, the imprisonment of young girls and find hope for the survivors of that situation,” said Dixon.

He added that Myatt has developed a drama with a complex perspective on a difficult topic, in which she explores with remarkable humanity and insight, but also with humor and kindness in a realistic way.

“What’s the light at the end of the tunnel?” Myatt said. “Part of my interest not to show how hard it is, but that there is some action being taken.”

The play is set in an aftercare shelter in Phnom Penh, where American expatriate Sidney Webb (Nathaniel Fuller) and his British colleague, Sister Margaret (Dale Hodges), stay on to rehabilitate children rescued from Cambodia's brothels long after many other well-meaning relief workers have lost their will and returned home.

Japanese native and New York actress Yoko Fumoto portrays Tam Webb, the former child-prostitute that was rescued and now is the wife of Sidney Webb.

Tam is Vietnamese, but has no paperwork to claim her citizenship and so could never return home. As a housewife with two children of her own, she is an example of a success story in the eyes of the children.

“My role presents their future, as one of the lucky ones who is able to marry,” she said. “Most of the kids think it will be impossible to have a normal life and a future.”

Her life is still haunted with nightmares and memories that threaten the happy relationships in the Webb home. “There are huge traumas that they cannot carry,” she added.

She was concerned that the play might perpetuate stereotypes of Asian women as sex workers, but she said that as long as there are women and girls in this situation then it is a story that needs to be told.

“This is fact and this is not right,” she said. “If the play can show that this is happening then maybe people can think about it differently.”

She says that the humanity rises above any racial or cultural questions in the play and is about people there to help.

“The play asks the question, ‘That is we are all the same human beings then how can people do this kind of stuff to children?”

A young attorney, Peter Hansen (Ted Thompson), announces plans for a surprise raid on a brothel and bring the girls to the shelter. The raid turns to chaos and only three frightened girls are freed. Lida (Mayano Ochi), Yen (Jeany Park) and Kolab (Rebecca J. Wall).

Randy Reyes plays Max, a Cambodian American who returns home after becoming a psychologist, and we learn about the plight of the girls through his therapy interviews. The girls begin the arduous process of recovery under the concerned watch of the shelter workers. The challenges of this work prove rewarding yet heartbreakingly difficult.

Each of the girls represents the real life victories and tragedies that are won and lost day to day in the face of devastation.

Max practices art therapy, one of the more common ways to deal with abused and traumatized children.

Reyes said that it was difficult emotionally to look into that world and to read about the cases, and it helped that he worked with a theater group that deals with abuse in the past.

“This is hard subject matter to do every day,” he added. “The cast finds ways not to fall into that deep dark hole of depression.”

The play is more about the non-Asian relief workers in Asia, than it is about the issue from leading Asian characters or a cultural perspective. Yet, Reyes said that the play works because it doesn’t claim to be anything else but the difficulty of their work.

“Julie wants to show how Americans failed in Cambodia, and the Asian characters are the backdrop,” he said.

Veteran stage actor and playwright Jeany Park had to reach for her inner child to portray Yen, a rebellious and defiant survivor who is the eldest of the three rescued girls.

Park enjoyed the focus on one role in Boats on a River. She has been accustomed to much more responsibility in her several plays on the topic of abused women and girls.

Park’s play, “100 Men’s Wife” was staged earlier this year at Minnesota History Theater. It is the story of the first Chinese woman in Minnesota, who was a trafficking victim who was sold into prostitution in San Francisco before escaping. She also wrote “Falling Flowers” about the experience of Korean “Comfort Women” in WWII that was staged in 2004.

Park said that it is difficult to stage victims as prostitutes without perpetuating the stereotype. With Boats on a River, she said the subject matter is prostitution but the comparison is different based on place and time and circumstances. She appreciates the power of the play from dissecting moments of crisis that helps the audience understand characters and the story in little slices.

“Julie is a wonderful playwright and this is a beautiful story that needs to be told on an issue that needs attention,” said Park. “…The Asian characters that she has written are lovely. They are not eroticized, sensationalized or titillating. I do respect that,” she added.

Other cast members include: Kris L. Nelson (Jonathan Black), Aeola Lu (Cambodian Girl), Megan K. Mecklenburg (Cambodian Girl), Anna Northenscold (Cambodian Girl), and Isabelle Yang (Cambodian Girl).

Performances will be held Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 7:00 p.m., Matinees on selected Saturdays and Sundays at 1:00 p.m. A Pre-Play Discussion will be held on Sunday, May 20 at 5 p.m. Post-Play Discussions will be held on Tuesday, May 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 2 at 1 p.m. www.guthrietheater.org