Hanoi to offer unique dream to Clinton
WASHINGTON - When President Bill Clinton visits Hanoi next month Vietnamese
and American actors will aim to show him the hippy-era dream, make love not war, can be a reality.
Just before Clinton arrives in mid-November as the first US President to visit Vietnam since the late
Richard Nixon in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, the Hanoi Opera House will premiere a unique
version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
A joint production of the Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) of Portland, Oregon, and the Central
Dramatic Company of Vietnam, the Shakespeare comedy will feature Vietnamese and American actors
as the main protagonists.
In the adaptation, Hermia, played by Hanoi native Pham Ngan Hoa, falls in love with Lysander,
played by Doug Miller from Portland, against the wishes of her Vietnamese father.
Later, while drugged, Lysander and a Vietnamese Demetrius, are smitten with passion for an
American Helena.
The play, to be performed in Vietnamese and English with rolling supertitles, is the brainchild of
Lorelle Browning, a professor at Pacific University in Oregon and her husband Marvin Simmons, a veteran
wounded three times in Vietnam in the 1960s.
Clinton, an opponent of the war who avoided the draft and established diplomatic ties with Hanoi in
1995, has been invited to watch.
"This has been project we have done together as a kind of reconciliation gesture, as a way of
getting to know the Vietnamese people in a way we were never able to in the war," said Browning.
She said Vietnamese were already familiar with Shakespeare, but mostly with his tragedies.
"They really have not had much exposure to Shakespeare's comedies," she said. "I believed it was
time for Americans and Vietnamese to make each other laugh -- we have spent many, many years
making each other cry."
The project is being co-directed by Doan Hoang Giang, a well-known Vietnamese director and the
ART's Allen Nause.
"This co-operation brings Vietnam and America closer," said Giang. "At first we intended to chose
'Othello', but after further discussion we thought that as a tragedy it would be a bit heavy.
"Lorelle had a very interesting idea...that we now needed a good laugh to improve the atmosphere. I
thought that was an interesting idea, so we agreed on 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'."
After Hanoi, the play will go to other Vietnamese cities then to the US west coast.
Cast members, most of whom were barely born when the war ended in 1975, said their main worry
was not the historical baggage, but the language barrier.
"I feel no obstacle -- Doug and I get on very well," said Hoa. "(But) he doesn't speak Vietnamese at
all and I can speak only a little English. I was afraid the language difference would cause problems in the
rehearsals and the performance.
"But when Doug and I started working with each other I felt no such distance, we feel very close
and enjoy each other's company and language is no longer the most important thing."
Even so, cast members like 24-year-old Hiliary Douglas from Seattle, a Fulbright scholar who
speaks fluent Vietnamese, have been vital.
By David Brunnstrom - Reuters - November 3, 2000.
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