Courtesy of Dengue Fever Music
Playwright Lauren Yee’s “Cambodian Rock Band” shines a spotlight on the Khmer Rouge’s (the Communist Party of Kampuchea) genocide and occupation of Cambodia. Through impactful use of song and dialogue, the play reveals the Khmer Rouge’s abuses, the genocide’s impact on the people of Cambodia to this day and how unifying and healing music can be. With numerous songs from Dengue Fever, as well as “The Times They Are a-Changin’” by Bob Dylan, Yee transports audience members to both the late 1970s and 2008 as she unearths a story of one man’s friends, survival, violence, secrecy and reunification with his only daughter in light of the Cambodian genocide.
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge began a massive genocide of Cambodians, which lasted for three years and killed approximately between 1.5 and 2 million people. Dictator Pol Pot, the head of the Khmer Rouge, was trying to create a “master race” of Cambodians by torturing and killing intellectuals, musicians, religious people, so-called spies and anyone who used or enjoyed anything of Western influence. The Khmer Rouge set up imprisonment centers in cities, the most infamous of which was Tuol Sleng jail in the city of Phnom Penh. The majority of Yee’s play is set at this location. As is mentioned frequently in “Cambodian Rock Band,” the Tuol Sleng jail was originally a high school that the Khmer Rouge decided to call the S-21 prison. At S-21, of the known 14,000 people who entered the school grounds, only seven were known to have survived.
“Cambodian Rock Band” focuses on one of these survivors named Chum. The show begins like a rock concert with the performance of a couple songs by the titular band, which is later understood to be called The Cyclos. The narrator is introduced as Duch (Francis Jue) and as he formats the show, the other characters are introduced as Chum (Joe Ngo); his daughter Neary (Courtney Reed) and her business partner Ted (Moses Villarama); Chum’s bandmates Sothea (Reed), Leng (Villarama), Pou (Jane Lui) and Rom (Abraham Kim); as well as Cadre Key (Villarama), an S-21 guard (Lui) and a journalist (Kim).
Ngo has played the role of Chum in three previous productions of “Cambodian Rock Band” and was instrumental in aiding in development of the play. As the only Cambodian actor in the cast, Ngo’s family was very personally affected by the atrocities mentioned in the show. In an interview with Broadway.com, Yee explained how Ngo showed her that “joy can be a survival strategy.” Yee took this revelation to heart, crafting a play that greatly emphasizes the importance of music and joy in surviving.
Yee’s “Cambodian Rock Band” shows audiences the horrors of the Cambodian genocide, while also sharing a new perspective on how the emotions and feelings behind a song can convey meaning and tell a story better than the lyrics themselves. This story is one that needs to be seen and heard by everyone and anyone, so get your tickets to “Cambodian Rock Band” at the Signature Theatre in New York, now through Sunday, March 15.
