It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of the Maryland, DC and Virginia regional stage.
Today, she tells us about the new Arena Stage production of playwright Lauren Yee's Cambodian Rock Band, a mesmerizing, music-infused drama about how war and political oppression in the 1960s and 70s ravaged the southeast Asian nation's vibrant rock music culture, and the how the war's violent legacy still haunts a Cambodian family.
Directed at Arena Stage by Chay Yew, Cambodian Rock Band 's cast includes Brooke Ishibashi, Francis Jue, Abraham Kim, Kelsey Angel Baehrens, Tim Liu, Jane Lui, Alex Lydon, Joe Ngo and Vi Tran. The show incorporates a live stage band - The Cyclos - covering 1960s- and 70s-era Cambodian psychedelic rock music and Cambodian-influenced songs by the contemporary American band, Dengue Fever.
CRB is a Signature Theatre production, in association with Alley Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and ACT Theatre/5th Avenue.
Cambodian Rock Band continues at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater in Washington, DC through August 27.
(Photo by Margot Schulman)
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