Vietgone’s Quang and Tong are back at South Coast Repertory and facing their not quite happily ever after in Qui Nguyen’s laugh-and-rap-packed World Premiere comedy Poor Yella Rednecks.

Once again, it’s the playwright himself (or rather Paco Tolson standing in for him) who opens things up with assurances that “all persons appearing in this work are fictitious,” then corrects himself because “who the fuck am I trying to kid? Clearly this is about a few people I may or may not know.”

The folks in question turn out to be Qui’s mom and dad, the former of whom, now seventy, has reluctantly agreed to be interviewed on condition that her son not only “tell happy thing” but also that the white people in his play “sound like the way I hear them,” which is why Poor Yella Redneck’s Arkansa rednecks say things like “Yeehaw! Get’er Done! Stevie Nicks” and also why we hear Quang (Tim Chiou), Tong (Maureen Sebastian), and their Vietnamese family and friends in colloquial, unaccented American English.

Oh, and since Mom wants to be heard speaking the same way her son does, i.e. with “a fucking potty mouth,” she and her fellow Vietnamese immigrants could give The Sopranos a run for their (excuse my French) motherfucking money.

There’s no need to have seen Vietgone to fall head over heels for its follow-up since playwright Nguyen quickly provides newbies with a brief summary of its plot. (A couple of Vietnamese refugees fall reluctantly in love in a 1975 Arkansas refugee camp).

Still, for those who’ve already made Quang and Tong’s acquaintance, Poor Yella Rednecks offers the added pleasure of being reunited with Tong’s mom Huong (Samantha Quan), Quang’s sidekick Nhan (Eugene Young), and Tong’s Caucasian ex Bobby (Tolson), whose Vietnamese As A Second Language we hear as pidgin English with an Arkansas twang.

New this time round is a “random British Narrator” (Tolson) who takes us “far away to the exotic land of El Do-ray-do, Arkansas,” and Quang and Tong’s precocious six-year-old son Little Man, portrayed as a life-sized puppet manipulated kuroko-style by Tolson and Young and voiced by the latter.

If Vietgone had as its primary raison-d’être to give Obama-era romcom fans the Asian equivalent of a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan flick, Poor Yella Rednecks proves Trump-America-relevant as Quang and Tong face the consequences of building a new life in an unwelcoming foreign land, from the challenges they face as language-challenged immigrants to those of a child rejected by his English-speaking classmates to a grandmother who fears that if Little Man does end up native-speaker fluent, he won’t be Vietnamese anymore.

Then comes the double whammy of Tong’s impending joblessness and the couple’s discovery that Quang’s first wife and children are alive and well in Vietnam and in need of financial aid … and the đi tiêu, as they say in Vietnamese, really hits the fan.

As in Vietgone before it, playwright Nguyen once again punctuates the action with a dozen or so hip-hop sequences, sound designer Shane Rettig amping voices the second characters start busting rhymes to his rap-along original music arranged by Kenny Seymour.

Oh, and there’s some rip-roaring martial arts combat to do Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan proud.

May Adrales returns to South Coast Rep to direct Poor Yella Redneck with abundant panache, eliciting electrifying performances from fellow returnees Sebastian (feisty, fiery, and fabulous), Quan (a triple treat as the quirky, querulous Huang, a justifiably ticked off Thu, and the tantalizing San),

and Tolson (in multiple roles, each as wonderfully wacky as the next with special snaps to his irresistible Bobby) to cast newcomers Chiou (handsome, hunky, leading-man perfection) and Young (as adorable a Little Man as he is a sensationally slackerish Nhan, to name just two of his creations).

Arnulfo Maldondo’s eye-catching scenic design takes us from the trailer Quang and Tong call home to the diner where she’s about to be out of a job, Jared Mezzocchi’s LED projections explode like animated manga along the way, and Valérie Thérèse Bart’s colorful costumes, Lap Chi Chu’s ultra-vibrant lighting, Sean Cawelti’s charming puppet design/direction, and Shammy Dee’s expert music direction merit highest marks as well.

Kimberly Colburn is dramaturg. Lawrence Kao is hip-hop consultant. Maggie Macdonald is fight consultant. Judith Moreland is dialect coach. Casting is by Joanne DeNaut, CSA.

Poor Yella Rednecks is produced in association with Manhattan Theatre Club. Joshua Marchese is production manager. Kathryn Davies is stage manager and Natalie Figaredo is assistant stage manager.

By raising the dramatic, cultural stakes the second time around, Qui Nguyen outdoes himself with Poor Yella Rednecks. Giving those Crazy Rich Asians a low-income run for their money, Quang and Tong had me from xin chào. (That’s “hello” in Vietnamese.)

South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
www.scr.org

–Steven Stanley
April 7, 2019
Photos: Jordan Kubat/SCR

Tags: Orange County Theater Review, Qui Nguyen, South Coast Repertory