‘Cambodian Rock Band’ Playwright’s Work Back In San Diego

Speaker 1: 00:00 Politics is personal in a new production opening at Cygnet theater this week. The play, the great leap is set back in 1989 during the exhibition basketball game between the U S and China during the play. The tensions of the Tiananmen square protests mirror the tensions on the basketball court. Joining me by Skype is the great leap playwright Lauren ye, she's a UC San Diego graduate and also the playwright of Cambodian rock band that was recently at LA Jolla Playhouse. And Lauren, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. You know at first the setting of this play may seem odd, a basketball game in China in the 1980s but you actually have something of a personal inspiration for that setting. Can you tell us about that? Speaker 2: 00:46 Yeah, so my father grew up in San Francisco. He was born and raised there and the only thing he really did before he had kids and raised a family was play basketball. And so basically in the 80s he got invited with his teammates from San Francisco to play a series of exhibition games in China against the best teams. In the country. And that was a trip that I'd always heard about growing up, but when I got commissioned by Denver center to write a play for them, I was like, ah, Denver loves basketball. This may be a really great opportunity to delve into a footnote of my father's past. Speaker 1: 01:27 That's fascinating. Kenny, can you give us a brief idea of the plot of the great leap? Speaker 2: 01:32 The great leap is not a retelling of my father's story. It's a story inspired by what he went through and it focuses on a similar friendship game between China and America in the 80s and it features a scrappy Chinese American young man named Manford Lum who desperately wants to talk his way onto the American team so he can go on this trip to China. Um, so someone like my father, but not exactly Speaker 1: 02:05 how does the backdrop of TNM and square play into the, the plot. Speaker 2: 02:09 So the play is set in San Francisco and Beijing in 1989 and kind of anyone who remembers that period of time will remember that that was just this period of tumbled and change and you know, possibility. For what China's future was going to be. You know? And so I think the play leans into this idea of ordinary people in an extreme, in extraordinary circumstances that it kind of like starts in a situation where the characters are like, I want to play this game, I want to play this game. And they find themselves in the midst of huge, huge political events just swirling around them. Speaker 1: 02:53 You know, one thing we may forget with all the tensions and trade talks that exists now between China and the U S is that China loves basketball as much or even more than Americans. Is that [inaudible] is there something about that shared interest that fascinates you? Speaker 2: 03:09 I, I think so. I think that, you know, any time a country or a group of people gravitate towards a particular sport, I think that's really fascinating and tells us something about the psyche of that country. And so for instance, like the fact that both China and America really relate deeply to basketball I think reveals different things about the country. Cause I think, you know, in America basketball is so popular because it's five people on the court. Unlike a football game, you see the players, you know, they're not wearing helmets. They're, they're kind of, they get to be individuals, you know. Whereas basketball in China has its roots focusing on like the group aspects of the game. Uh, Mao Zedong loved basketball. He used to play it in a way like there's nothing more communist than basketball. It's a sport played by people, you know, with fewer resources that there's nothing really more democratic than a basketball game in some respects Speaker 1: 04:12 because all you need is a, a place to play in a hoop. Right? Speaker 2: 04:15 I mean it's, it's also what it's, it's another reason why like soccer is so popular worldwide cause you need one ball. Baseball. Think of all the equipment. Football, think of all the equipment. But a game like basketball, you know, it's a game for everybody. Speaker 1: 04:30 You know, in your play Cambodian rock band, which recently ran at LA Jolla Playhouse family secrets play a big role in the plot. Is that also true in the great leap? Speaker 2: 04:40 I think you'll have to come see the play to find out. Speaker 1: 04:42 I, let me ask you this then. Are you obsessed with the idea of families having secrets and wanting to expose them? Speaker 2: 04:50 Yeah, I think I'm, I'm obsessed with them, but I find that idea very, very true that like every family, no matter how well you know your parents or your relatives, there's always something you haven't learned and like something that is being held back generally for the reason of protecting the next generation. That there's this sense of secure security and, and like comfort that you want to give the next generation when all they really want to know is like what were you like when you were that age? And so in a way like, you know, the great leap is my musing about like what was my father like when he was like a teenager? Speaker 1: 05:30 You know, Lauren, you, you have the distinction of being one of the two most produced playwrights in the country just now. And the great leap and Cambodian rock band are both in American theaters, top 10 most produced plays. What is it about your work you think that hits a chord with audiences? Speaker 2: 05:47 I, I think it's, I'm always interested in a completely unexpected evening of theater that I think the best theatrical experiences should be filled with like humor and heartbreak. It should introduce you to worlds you've never seen before. People you've never met, but that it also some health fields incredibly familiar. I tell a lot of family stories. I also recently, you know, have told a lot of history stories looking at footnotes in history that don't seem like they should be connected, but our right Cambodian rock band and the great leap are two worlds that kind of collide very different pieces of subject matter basketball and communism. Um, Cambodian rock band is psychedelic surf rock in the Camair Rouge and genocide. Like those don't seem like things that should kind of be in the same sentence even, but that's what the history is. Speaker 1: 06:43 Well, we're going to be seeing more of your work in San Diego as the year goes on. You, uh, LA Jolla Playhouse will premiere your play mother Russia in September. And I hear you're working on a play about craft beer, is that right? Speaker 2: 06:57 That is, that's correct. Yeah. That's been commissioned by LA Jolla Playhouse. And I'm still like trying to figure that one out. Speaker 1: 07:04 Okay. So what do you hope audiences take away from the great leap? Speaker 2: 07:09 I hope the basketball fans among the audience will see that I got something right in how to portray basketball and how to give the audience a sense of what the spirit of basketball is, even if we don't necessarily see that on the court. And then I think just for the entire audience, I would love for us to think about our individual powers as ordinary citizens and how the efforts of a single human being can change history. Speaker 1: 07:42 Well, I've been speaking with the author of the great leap, Lauren ye the great leap runs through February 16th at Cygnet theater in old town. And Lauren, thank you very much for speaking with us. Speaker 2: 07:53 Thank you.