Maureen Sebastian reprises her role as Tong from the South Coast Rep’s 2019 world premiere of Poor Yella Rednecks, with Ben Levin as her new leading man.
By this point, the plays of Qui Nguyen are starting to look like “seen one, seen them all.” From his earliest productions, for downtown theater troupe Vampire Cowboys, Nguyen’s works have their hallmarks: comic-book-style scenic design, martial arts, superhero and pop-culture fandom. The playwright has often been acclaimed for inventive storytelling and stagecraft. But now that he’s deployed the same gimmicks in play after play, their novelty has worn off. In Poor Yella Rednecks, Nguyen’s latest show to debut in New York, they seem obtrusive. The play is solidly plotted, with thoughtful, moving dialogue scenes. It could shed all the whiz-bang surrealities and still be a worthwhile, entertaining dramedy.
Jon Norman Schneider (left) portrays the playwright as an adult and as a child (rendered in puppet form), with Levin as his father, Quang.
Poor Yella Rednecks is a sequel to Vietgone, which was produced by Manhattan Theatre Club in 2016 and at many regional theaters since then. The autobiographically inspired plays tell the—to borrow a term from Nguyen’s beloved superhero universe—origin story of his family in the United States. The core characters are the same: Nguyen’s mother, Tong; his father, Quang; his maternal grandma, Huong; and Quang’s best friend, Nhan. Vietgone depicted Tong’s and Quang’s last days in Vietnam before they fled during the fall of Saigon and their early relationship after meeting in an Arkansas refugee camp. Poor Yella Rednecks takes place five years into their marriage, when they’re living in a trailer park and have a son, who’s named Qui but mostly referred to as Little Man—and is portrayed by a puppet.
Puppetry is another recurring feature in Nguyen’s oeuvre. And in Poor Yella Rednecks, like Vietgone, characters suddenly break into rap to deliver their thoughts. Tong also breaks into barrages of profanity—dropping about a dozen F-bombs within as many lines in one rap, and repeating an “I don’t give a shit” refrain over and over in another.
Nguyen’s work offers a perspective on the aftermath of the Vietnam War that’s rarely been seen on stage or screen—that of Vietnamese immigrants. And his potty-mouthed, lusty, argumentative characters struggling to make ends meet shatter stereotypes of Asians as a docile “model minority,” with parents pushing kids into the best schools to become doctors. These parents say:
Tong sees her ex, Bobby (Paco Tolson, right), whom she was still dating when she got involved with Quang. Photographs by Jeremy Daniel
Don’t got a lotta options
Don’t got a lotta cash
We got a lotta problems ...
I’m climbing these ladders, adapting through disasters
No money in my pocket but I’m rich where it matters
Won’t stop till we’ve won, swinging for that home run ...
One day we’re gonna thrive in this foreign land
But today we’re gonna do whatever we can
So the whole setting of Poor Yella Rednecks—socioeconomically, geographically, culturally, historically—still feels fresh, even on this second go-round with the characters. Its story is rich with emotion and insight into the immigrant experience. Perhaps the most poignant moment occurs between Huong and Little Man, who’s struggling in school. Huong has been told she may be holding her grandson back because she can’t speak English with him, so she has to encourage him to be more American to succeed, but wants him to stay proud of his heritage.
Huong (Samantha Quan, left) and Tong play mother and daughter, refugees from Vietnam who are living in Arkansas in 1981.
Tenderly written scenes like that make more of an impact than all the hip-hop, kung fu and comix adornments. And these indulgences of Nguyen’s personal interests give the script an air of solipsism—as do the final rap and photo montage, which seem to pay tribute to Nguyen’s parents for producing such a gifted son.
He has written a compelling and spirited central character in Tong, portrayed in a star-making performance by Maureen Sebastian, who brings out all the complexities of this headstrong yet sensitive woman. Dashing around in tight tops and looking as pretty as all the characters—including Tong herself—say Tong is, Sebastian is almost unrecognizable from the semi-frumpy tracksuited narrator she played on the same stage last year in MTC’s The Best We Could. She’s backed by an excellent cast of Nguyen regulars who play multiple roles in addition to their main parts: Ben Levin, Samantha Quan, Jon Norman Schneider, Jon Hoche and Paco Tolson.
Poor Yella Rednecks opens with an audience address by an actor (Schneider) pretending to be Nguyen. The “playwright” sits down to interview one of his parents, and the parent makes a crack about how the audience for whatever play he writes is just going to be white people. The script includes slang that didn’t yet exist in 1981, and to the Vietnamese characters, English sounds like a gibberish series of buzzwords and brand names. All of this is in Vietgone, too. Nguyen has a definite template for his work—but some of it, even while staged with skill and brio, may have become superfluous.
Poor Yella Rednecks runs through Nov. 26 at City Center (131 W. 55th St.). Performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with matinees at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday; manhattantheatreclub.com.
Playwright: Qui Nguyen
Director: May Adrales
Sets: Tim Mackabee
Costumes: Valérie Thérèse Bart
Lighting: Lap Chi Chu
Sound and Original Music: Shane Rettig
Projections: Jared Mezzocchi
Puppet Design: David Valentine
