CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND: YES AND NO

A bunch of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band didn’t work for me, but I’m glad to see the Arts Club producing it.

Yee’s script is a light-hearted and sentimental fantasy — with surfer rock songs — about the still-reverberating tremors of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that period, the party’s leader Pol Pot oversaw the political murders of as many as two million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the country’s population.

Dramaturgically, this is an ambitious and odd mix that doesn’t entirely gel.

Act 1 launches with a sitcom-style set-up. It’s 2008 and a Cambodian-American dad named Chum shows up unexpectedly at his daughter Neary’s hotel room in Phnom Penh. This causes all sorts of innocuous comedic fluster as Neary tries to disguise the fact that she’s living in that room with her boyfriend.

This sits oddly with the understory. Neary, who was born in the States and grew up there, is working for an NGO on the upcoming trial of murder-camp commandant named Comrade Duch. (The character is based on an historical figure.) When Vietnamese forces liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge in early 1979, they found just seven survivors in Duch’s prison camp, S21, where he oversaw the torture and killing of thousands, but Neary thinks she’s close to identifying an eighth survivor, who could provide crucial testimony in Duch’s long-delayed but upcoming trial.

The twists in the plot are predictable and driven by such unlikely coincidences that they move Cambodian Rock Band halfway towards fairytale. It’s this halfway position that I found problematic. Because the reality base in Cambodian Rock Band is so slippery, I found myself unable to fully emotionally invest in the story’s serious elements; if the playwright can’t commit to them, why should I?

At the same time, there are all sorts of things to like about the conception of this script and the execution of this production. Act 2 worked much, much better for me, partly because it’s more focused: we spend an extended chunk of time with Duch and Survivor #8. Under Jivesh Parasram’s direction, there are some terrific performances in this Arts Club mounting, which is a Canadian premiere, and, throughout the evening, the music is fantastic.

Duch narrates this story and, in a solidly assured and witty performance, Nicco Lorenzo Garcia brings serpentine charm to the role. Yee’s writing, which can seem scattered elsewhere, serves Duch well: in Act 2, the playwright gives the insomniac war criminal a lyrical and complicated speech about sleep.

Raugi Yu is some kind of wonderful as Chum, fully exploiting the character’s dual nature as a bumbling dad and emotionally scarred survivor. As Vancouver audiences are surely aware by now, the guy can sing. His pitch-perfect delivery of a simple, melancholy song at the top of Act 2 is a highlight of the production. And, in the story’s third time period, just before the invasion of the Khmer Rouge, when a group of young Cambodian musicians are completing their first rock album, Yu shows off his chops on bass guitar.

This fictional band, the Cyclos, provides the portal that allows playwright Yee to insert the music of the real-life Cambodian-Californian group Dengue Fever and other artists into the mix. I loved the wild abandon of Dengue Fever’s songs, which is a huge part of the texture of this piece.

And it’s a pleasure to experience the multidimensional talents of the performers in this mounting. Jay Leonard Juatco’s musicianship and showmanship as Leng, the band’s lead guitarist, are showstoppers and, as a central character in the unfolding drama, Juatco delivers as an actor.

Playing both Neary and the Cyclos’ lead singer Sothea, Kimberly-Ann Truong is a powerhouse vocalist. And Jun Kung is such a great drummer. For me, the highlight of Act 1 is a rhythmic rocker in which keyboardist Kalya Sakura Charchuk goes nuts on the bongos.

Itai Erdal lights Jung-Hye Kim’s stylishly minimalistic set with drama, variety, and a whole lot of fog.

I mentioned off the top that Cambodian Rock Band is sentimental: it wraps up with a feel-good tidiness that’s far too easy for the level of trauma it’s addressing. Yee’s decision to go this route is clearly strategic and could be regarded as commercial or condescending. It could also be regarded as smart: Yee’s strategy is getting this story into theatres and helping to expand the understanding of Cambodia beyond the killing fields and into the centrality of music in Cambodian culture.

And, as I said, it’s great to see this show at the Arts Club. So many artists I haven’t had the pleasure of encountering before. And so much ambition.

CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND By Lauren Yee. Featuring songs by Dengue Fever. Directed by Jivesh Parasram. An Arts Club Theatre production. On the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage until April 6. (tickets and information)

PHOTO CREDIT: Kimberly-Ann Truong rocks out in Cambodian Rock Band (Costume by Stephanie Kong, lighting by Itai Erdal, photo by Moonrider Productions)