We attended a performance at the Art’s Club’s Stanley Theatre that was part rock concert and part disturbing historical play.
It was a rock concert that stopped now and again to tell a story.
Or maybe it was a story punctuated by rock music.
Maybe it was both.
Regardless, it was a moving story of a dark time in Cambodia when the US pulled out and the Khmer Rouge brutally took over, their reign lasting 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. When Vietnamese forces liberated Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge in early 1979, they found just seven survivors in prison camp S21, where murder-camp commandant Comrade Duch oversaw the torture and killing of thousands.
The play spans two timelines – the here and now where the daughter of a survivor is involved in the 30-year delayed murder trial of the camp commandant, and the past, when her father was a member of the Cambodian rock band “The Cyclos”. Three band members were killed, one joined the Khmer, and one survived capture and torture in prison camp S21, eventually being freed and not returning to Cambodia until 30 years later when his daughter finds herself there preparing for the trial.
The music was fantastic, the actors are all clearly exceptional musicians, and the story resonated more than a little bit with current world events.
It was a chaotic, but interesting, performance that left me with some deep thoughts about dark times.
