‘Extinction’ an affecting story fairly well told

Sunday, August 15, 2010
By Jennifer Chung Klam
Special to the San Diego Union-Tribune
THEATER REVIEW

DETAILS
“Song of Extinction”

• Ion Theatre Company
• When: Thursdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 p.m., through Sept. 4
• Where: BLKBOX, 3704 Sixth Ave., Hillcrest
• Tickets: $10-$25
• Phone: (619) 600-5020
• Online: iontheatre.com

“Extinction is a very messy business,” says biology teacher Khim Phan. He knows from firsthand experience, having lost his family and 2 million countrymen in the killing fields of Cambodia.

E.M. Lewis’ “Song of Extinction” interweaves the genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge with the imminent extinction of a rare insect and a son’s grief over his mother’s terminal cancer. Lewis’ 2008 play is a lyrical, metaphor-laden meditation on family, loss, hope and new beginnings. Despite uneven acting and some technical issues, the San Diego premiere at Ion Theatre is a quietly affecting piece.

The story revolves around three men dealing with extinction in their own way. When Phan (Diep Huynh) teaches his students the chapter on extinction, it reminds him of his family, country and history. “Maybe I teach them about Cambodia without saying its name,” he muses.

Huynh marks a welcomed return to the stage after a three-year hiatus. Though playing a much older character, Huynh is grounded, sturdy and wise as he delivers some of the play’s most poignant and humorous lines about extinction and teaching.

An expert in extinction, Phan helps his student Max (Matthew Alexander) through the pain of losing his mother (Robin Christ), and also aids the mother on her final journey.

Max’s father (Tom Hall), a biologist fighting to save a patch of Bolivian rain forest that’s home to a rare beetle, is so preoccupied with his work that he hardly notices his son’s despair.

Alexander brings teen angst, anger and resentment to his role as Max, whose pain is as palpable as his facade of apathy.

Hall obsesses as the biologist who cannot save his wife and instead focuses on saving an insect, while Christ wholly embodies the dying wife who has a broken body and sharp mind.

Yet Hall and Christ seem oddly matched as the scientific couple, and their lack of chemistry is most apparent in their few scenes of tenderness.

A series of curtains and movable panels helps shift locales between home, school and hospital. Scene changes often require moving set pieces, such as the hospital bed, and can make interludes feel lengthy, especially since the scenes are so short. Lighting by Karin Filijan tends to run dim, darkening the tone more than is warranted.

After all, “Song of Extinction” is not really a story of death and destruction, but rather hope and renewal. The play tells a complex story in a simple way, through vignettes, brief monologues and dream sequences. The result, under Claudio Raygoza’s direction, is a ruminative, poetic production that underscores the fragility and interconnectedness of life. Playwright Lewis ultimately presents an argument for nurturing relationships and social involvement.

Life story of a Cambodian-American teen to make New York theatre premiere

Year Zero at Second Stage Uptown

25 May 2010
By Matthew Blank
Playbill.com

Michael Golamco's Year Zero, about a suddenly-motherless Cambodian-American teen, makes its New York premiere at Second Stage Theatre Uptown.

Year Zero centers on "Vuthy Vichea, a 16-year-old Cambodian American who wears thick glasses, loves hip hop, and plays Dungeons and Dragons. After his mother's death, Vuthy and his sister Ra struggle to reinvent themselves in Long Beach, CA, where being different can be deadly."

Will Frears directs a cast featuring Mason Lee, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Peter Kim and Maureen Sebastian.

Here is a first look at the work:

Actor Mason Lee (Photo by Joan Marcus)

Tickets for the show at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, located on Broadway (at 76th Street, 3rd floor), can be purchased by calling (212) 246-4422. For more information, visit 2ST.com.

‘Breaking the Silence’ Takes Courage: Actress

Click here to listen to Part 1 of 7 (Khmer, MP3)

Click here to listen to Part 2 of 7 (Khmer, MP3)

A scene from the play 'Breaking the Silence.' (Photo: Jim Mizerski)

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, D.C Monday, 03 May 2010

“At first, I didn’t want to talk about my story at all because the death of my father really hurt me.”

Actress Chhon Sina, whose real life story is a part of a theater drama aimed at getting people to talk about their trauma under the Khmer Rouge, says even she at first was hesitant to share her experiences.

But such sharing can help relieve suffering, she told “VOA Khmer” on Thursday, and she hopes other survivors will stop keeping their experiences hidden.

Chhon Sina is part of a drama called “Breaking the Silence,” a series of skits that have been performed live in villages around the country and most recently broadcast on VOA Khmer.

“Breaking the Silence” encourages survivors and perpetrators to discuss their respective trauma, especially in villages where atrocities may have occurred and both live side by side as neighbors.

Chhon Sina’s father was killed after seeking treatment at a Khmer Rouge hospital. A nurse gave him an injection of medicine to stop him from groaning, which killed him.

“At first, I didn’t want to talk about my story at all because the death of my father really hurt me,” Chhon Sina said Thursday. “Only later did I feel that I should be brave to describe my story, so that I could be relieved and able to encourage other people to be brave and speak out as well.”

She may be brave enough to speak about her father’s murder, she said, but she’s not so sure she would be able to confront his killer.

“If I saw the nurse who killed my father, I wouldn’t know what to do,” she said. “I would have to run away from her.”

And she still has a hard time explaining her trauma to her nieces and nephews and making them believe such things happened, she said.

“As an actress, I hope that through my play I am able to encourage the victims to be brave to speak out, such as I did,” she said. “I believe that through this performance, people will have the courage to speak out.”

A Play’s Second Tour Furthers Reconciliation

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Takeo province
11 February 2010

Around 500 villagers have gathered at a former Khmer Rouge prison camp in Takeo province to watch the performance. The crowd, at Kraing Ta Chan prison in Tram Kok district, bursts into laughter as a man acting like a monkey jumps on stage, but soon, the play turns more serious.

In another scene, a man asks a former Khmer Rouge soldier whether she’s heard of any massacres by the regime. She quickly tells him, “No. There were no killings in this village.”

“You are telling lies!” shouts a victim.

The play, “Breaking the Silence,” which encourages Cambodians to speak out about their experiences under the Khmer Rouge—as victims or soldiers—has begun a second tour.

The play, a series of skits by six performers from Amrita Performing Arts, depicts the atrocities of the regime and their impact on modern Cambodia.

“As suggested by its title, the play is aimed at calling people to talk, talk, and talk about what happened during the Khmer Rouge period,” said Suon Bun Rith, country director for Amrita Performing Arts. “We talk not to retain anger but to reconcile and find ways to live together in harmony for the sake of the next generation.”

The play, sponsored by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, was first performed last February in Phnom Penh and the provinces of Kampong Cham, Kandal and Takeo, ahead of the trial of Kaing Kek Iev, or Duch, by the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal.

The second tour, from Feb. 3 to Feb. 12, comes as the tribunal prepares Case No. 002, with a trial of Duch and four senior leaders of the regime expected to begin later this year.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center, said the play seeks to encourage more people pay attention to the tribunal.

“All the scenes are from facts, and we want people to better understand that Case No. 002 is the most important and historical for them,” he said. “And through the court, we want people to look at how they can reconcile with and forgive low-ranking Khmer Rouge cadres now living next door.”

Annemarie Prins, the Dutch author of the play, said she hoped it would keep people talking about past ordeals and help them deal with psychological trauma.

“The big trauma is still with the people who survived, and many of them find it very difficult to talk about what happened,” she said. “And to talk about trauma, especially genocide, is very important in order to work through the terrible time for both perpetrators and victims; it’s extremely important to heal and to be able say, ‘I’m so sorry,’ to somebody you harmed in some way or another.”

Soy Ser, a former prisoner at Kraing Ta Chan, said he felt less angry with former Khmer Rouge soldiers after seeing the play.

“When they performed in a scene where they try to reconcile, my anger calmed down a bit,” said the 52-year-old survivor, who lives in the same neighborhood as some of the Khmer Rouge he encountered.

Khim Sochanvireak, a 12th grader from Chea Sim Takeo high school, said the performance had helped him understand better what happened under the Khmer Rouge, convincing him the regime was murderous.

“The play makes us understand that Pol Pot killed his own people,” he said. “So we should not let the same thing happen again.”

Play Aims For Khmer Rouge Reconciliation

Cambodian actors rehearsed a play, called "Breaking the Silence", in Phnom Penh.

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 February 2009

A Cambodian play designed to help people speak more openly about their experiences under the Khmer Rouge is scheduled for viewing in rural areas, following a performance in Phnom Penh this weekend.

The play, “Breaking the Silence,” was established under cooperation between the Document Center of Cambodia and the Amerita Art organization.

Director Annemarie Prins, of the Netherlands Featuring Artists of the Secondary School of Fine Arts, did research in several provinces in Cambodia about the sadness, horror and daily lives during the Khmer Rouge. Prins found that some regime victims and former perpetrators live as neighbors but do not talk to each other.

Youk Chhang, director of the Document Center of Cambodia, said the play would be performed mostly in the countryside, to help people understand there can be reconciliation and tolerance between victims and perpetrators.

“We aim to show ‘Breaking the Silence’ in some rural areas so that the people will be able to see and participate in the show,” he said. “There are about seven cases that we picked from real life during the Khmer Rouge regime, after research and study by the Documentation Center of Cambodia. We used these cases to produce a story to show the audience.”

The play will be performed in Kampong Cham, Kampot, Kandal and Takeo provinces, and is completely Khmer in character, including speaking, ideas, proverbs and songs, he said.

In 2007 the Document Centre of Cambodia put out a play “Searching for the Truth,” which earned strong support from Cambodians.

Ser Sayana, a Documentation Center staff member and an assistant for the play, said the performances were a part of the center’s outreach program.

“I think when people see it they will understand, because the show is really based on the daily lives of people during the Khmer Rouge,” she said.

“Some people who were members of Khmer Rouge, or whose relatives were Khmer Rouge members, are now living around or near Khmer Rouge victims, as neighbors,” she said. “Those former Khmer Rouge members are still hiding in their minds, without speaking out, to let somebody know, their inner sadness. So this show could allow them to speak out in a way to brings reconciliation and tolerance.”