The tale of love and sacrifice set against the chaos of the closing days of the Vietnam War told in the musical “Miss Saigon” carries added meaning for two cast members in the Western Playhouse production, which runs July 4-13 at Missouri Western State University. It’s more than a show; it’s also a glimpse of what their family history may have been like. Vi Tran, who plays the Engineer, and Cody Wilson, who plays Thuy, both say “Miss Saigon” is a touching reminder of their heritage.
Sea Salt and Wheat Fields
Vi Tran’s parents left post-war Vietnam when he was about a year old, landing in a southeast Asia refugee camp. His career as a performer began as a toddler in the refugee camp, with other refugees frequently sharing what food they could spare with him. His mother’s extended family left the refugee camp for Australia, but Australia was no longer accepting refugees when his immediate family was ready to leave.
“My folks said ‘we just want a new start, just let us be farmers somewhere,’” he said. “So the officials at the refugee camp said ‘well, we’ve got an opening in America; there’s farmland in Kansas.’” So, when he was about three years old, his family relocated to southwest Kansas. “I like to consider myself equal parts sea salt and wheat fields,” he said. He’s awestruck by the risks his family took to create a better life for their children.
“I’ve always intellectually understood it, it’s part of my family’s oral history, and I find it really remarkable,” he said. “In particular, I think about my sister a lot, because she was eight years old, nine years old at that time, so she remembers everything about that journey.”
Tran said performing in “Miss Saigon” has given him a deeper appreciation for what his parents went through.
“They just made a choice and said ‘there’s no way that our kids have a future here, so we’ve got to make a move, and we’ll risk everything,’” he said. “And that’s what the crux of this show is about: these characters set up against impossible odds, and seeing them trying to find a solution, trying to find their own way out.”
Tran thinks that “Miss Saigon,” like all good theater, illuminates something you might not have noticed before.
“It’s taking a very dark time in human history and illuminating all the complications that were there,” he said. “It’s fun, it’s exciting, there’s big spectacle and production numbers, but then there’s also the rawness of human emotion, loss and tragedy.”
Tran now lives in Kansas City, Mo., where he has performed at the Starlight Theatre, the Unicorn Theatre, the Coterie and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, among other venues.
Saigon to Plum Run
As a toddler, Cody Wilson’s mother was in an orphanage near Saigon toward the end of the war. One of the American soldiers assigned to guard the orphanage frequently entertained the children by taking them out for Jeep rides. Nearing the end of his tour of duty, he became particularly attached to the little girl who would grow up to become Wilson’s mother. One day, after taking her out for a ride, they returned to find the orphanage had been bombed. The only thing he found in the wreckage was a partially burned birth certificate. The soldier stayed an extra six months to get immigration papers for the child, and then brought her home. He and his wife adopted her and raised her in the tiny community of Plum Run, W.Va., where Wilson was later born and raised.
Wilson says because his mother left Vietnam at such a young age and with no knowledge of her family, she couldn’t respond to questions he had about his heritage as he grew up.
“My grandfather had passed, so he couldn’t answer me, and this was one of those wars that a lot of things stayed over in Vietnam, so my grandmother couldn’t answer me. I had to find a lot of information on my own,” he said. “When I was cast (in ‘Miss Saigon’), I took it as an opportunity, a door to open to get back to my roots. I started doing research, I started understanding more, started connecting more, and there’s a sense of pride.”
Wilson says the show is very heartbreaking to him, because the desperate struggle portrayed on stage could have been his mother’s life. He is particularly moved by the song “Kim’s Nightmare,” which features Vietnamese citizens pleading with American soldiers to take them along as they evacuate the embassy, or to at least take their children.
“I got chills,” Wilson said. “What if my family was there? What if my mom was one of the kids they were pleading to take? For a family to want some stranger to take their child away from them, to a country that is not their own, how bad does the situation have to be?”
Wilson is a senior theater student at West Virginia University.
For more information about the Western Playhouse production of “Miss Saigon” or to purchase tickets, visit www.westernplayhouse.com.
Missouri Western State University is a comprehensive regional university providing a blend of traditional liberal arts and professional degree programs. The university offers student-centered, high quality instruction that focuses on experience-based learning, community service, and state-of-the-art technology. Missouri Western is located in St. Joseph, Mo., and is committed to the educational, economic, cultural and social development of the region it serves. Visit www.missouriwestern.edu.