THEATRE REVIEW

MARCH 2025 | Volume 249

 

It’s not Taylor Swift, but the musical excitement generated by Jivesh Parasram’s Arts Club production of Lauren Yee’s flawed, fascinating play is mindblowing. It’s been a while since I’ve leapt out of my seat and cheered wildly in a theatre.

Cambodian Rock Band takes place in multiple time frames. In 2008 in Phnom Penh we meet Neary (Kimberly-Ann Truong) and her boyfriend Ted (Jay Leonard Juatco), who are working with a war crimes tribunal. Neary gets a surprise visit from her father, Chum (Raugi Yu), a Cambodian who emigrated to the U.S., where Neary was born.

We also flash back to Phnom Penh in 1975, on the eve of the insurgent Khmer Rouge’s takeover of Cambodia, where we meet a local five-piece band, The Cyclos, who play and sing a raucous, heavy metal hybrid of Cambodian and western rock & roll. Truong is the deliriously brilliant singer in that band and Juatco is Leng, who plays killer electric guitar. Yu, a young Chum, is the bassist. The band is rounded out by Kayla Sakura Charchuk on keyboards and drummer Jun Kung.

Later, we’ll flash back again to 1976 or ’77 in the notorious S21 prison run by sadistic, murderous Duch (Nicco Lorenzo Garcia), the man who will be charged with crimes against humanity in 2008 for carrying out the genocidal policy of the Khmer Rouge. That’s the trial Neary and Ted are working on. A couple of the other characters end up in that prison as well.

The play begins as a kind of sitcom with Chum trying to convince his daughter to come back to the U.S. and go to law school. Yu gets a lot of laughs playing the cynical old-school Cambodian but the silliness turns dark when circumstances cause Chum to reveal the truths of his life under the Khmer Rouge.

Another ironic juxtaposition, disturbing but confusing, results from the playwright’s decision to have the vicious war criminal Duch act as a kind of impresario or emcee, addressing the audience somewhat in the style of the emcee in Cabaret or the Engineer in Miss Saigon. Garcia does a terrific job with the character, but his sleazy repulsiveness infected the entire evening for me.

The second act suffers from overly long scenes in the prison, but also contains the play’s most powerful moments. I don’t want to give too much away.

The acting is very fine across the board. I’ve been watching veteran Raugi Yu since he was a theatre student at UBC, and here he gives the performance of his life. Juatco’s Leng is gripping, and I’ve mentioned Garcia’s Duch (who was a real-life war criminal, by the way, running the real S21 prison). Truong is also very good as earnest young Neary, though the playwright seriously under-develops the character.

The design is also effective. Jung-Hye Kim’s set is dominated by scrims that slide in and out. The band members sometimes play behind the scrims, their shadowy figures evoking ghosts of the millions of Khmer Rouge victims. Costumer Stephanie Kong has crossed Cambodian traditional wear with 1970s western hippie garb, and she has had fun with wigs. Ace Martens’ sound for the band is clear and LOUD.

And that band, wow! Every time they hit it, the room just becomes electric. They’re playing original Cambodian period rock and a lot of music by the Los Angeles band Dengue Fever, which specializes in hybrid Cambodian-American rock. Kudos to musical director Mary Ancheta.

The band is so tight and their musicianship exceptional. But I have to single out Truong’s banshee singing and Juatco’s guitar-god playing. Theirs are world-class performances by any measure.

Sophea Heang also deserves a major shout-out for her extensive notes and photos in the Arts Club’s online program about the rock & roll music that was so important to Cambodians during the trying times of the 1960s and ‘70s, and its connections with the country’s political turmoil and its later search for justice. https://artsclub.com/shows/2024-2025/documents/house-programmes/cambodian-rock-band-house-programme.pdf

There were a lot of empty seats on opening night at the Stanley. It would be a shame if this show—one of the best the Arts Club has produced in years—doesn’t sell out.

 

 

 

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