Little Saigon and Other Plays

By P. V. LeForge

LITTLE SAIGON is a three-act play dramatizing the Vietnamese refugee crisis in the U.S. right after the fall of Saigon in 1975. The Hoang family--at least most of them--have survived the trip to Florida. But getting jobs and sticking together may be harder than their escape from Vietnam.

ALL TRAMP'S DAY is a one-act, featuring four primary characters. It tells the story of an old vagabond who wanders into a record store in a college tow Is he a thief, a liar, an entertainer, or maybe a murderer?

CLOWN SCHOOL is another one-act. An aging mechanic returns home to find that his 30-something daughter has left her rich and controlling husband and is moving back with him. Not only that, she has decided to become a clown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Bay Books
• Release date: Feb 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311370761

P. V. LeForge

P. V. LeForge lives on a horse farm in north Florida with his wife Sara Warner, who is a dressage rider and trainer. Their stable includes Fabayoso, who was Southeastern Regional Stallion Champion, and his colt Freester, who was Reserve Champion USDF Horse of the Year in 2011.LeForge is also an e-book formatter who can be found on Mark's List. He enjoys formatting Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Drama.LeForge's other books of poetry and fiction can be obtained in ebook and paperback at most on-line book outlets. In addition to writing and doing farm chores, he enjoys songwriting and target archery.

Book preview

Little Saigon

and Other Plays

P. V. LeForge

Copyright 2016 P. V. LeForge

These plays can be freely produced by any theater group, the only caveat being that each cast member should purchase their own copy, either in e-book or paperback.

This e-Book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-Book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the site where you purchased it and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author of these three plays.

There is no note played on any instrument that has not been played before. That said, the plays that make up Little Saigon and Other Plays are sheer fiction. Any resemblance of names, places, characters, and incidents to actual persons, places, and events results from the relationship which the world must always bear to works of this kind.

Books by P. V. LeForge

Fiction

The Principle of Interchange and Other Stories (1990)

Hell and High Water (with Anne Petty) (2012)

Museum Piece (with Anne Petty) (2013)

Time Piece (with Anne Petty) (2014)

The Notebooks of William Wilson (2015)

Book Stories (2017)

Poetry

The Secret Life of Moles (1992)

Getting a Good Read (2002)

Ways to Reshape the Heart (2008)

My Wife Is a Horse (2009)

Drama

Little Saigon and Other Plays (2016)

For Children

The Cat That Thought He Was a Rat (2011)

Table of Contents

Little Saigon

All Tramps’ Day

Clown School

Notes on the Plays

About the Author

Little Saigon

A Play in Three Acts

CAST OF CHARACTERS

HOANG BICH HAI: a Vietnamese refugee in her late fifties or early sixties.

TUAN: her older son, a physician.

TAO: her daughter, a lawyer.

SAM: her younger son, a college student.

LIEN: Tuan’s wife, an X-ray technician.

QUOI: Sam’s wife, a young homemaker.

XUAN: Tuan’s son, a boy about six or seven years old.

DO TAN DUC: a dentist who has been living in the U. S.

PHU: a rabble rouser

A SOCIAL WORKER: a Vietnamese woman who has been living in the U. S.

A CHURCH VOLUNTEER

VARIOUS VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

All of the characters are Vietnamese except the CHURCH VOLUNTEER. All of the Vietnamese characters are recent immigrants to the U. S. except DUC, who has gotten wealthy by practicing dentistry in the United States for several years, and the SOCIAL WORKER, who has also lived in the U. S. for years. DUC is somewhere in his forties, while TUAN is in his early thirties. TAO and LIEN are in their late-twenties. SAM is in his early twenties and his wife QUOI is younger still. Throughout the play, except in certain specified instances, BICH HAI will be completely immobile, her eyes staring somewhere into the middle distance. Her head will often be slumped forward.

TUAN, TAO, and SAM are well educated, well brought up, and self-confident. TAO is always formidable; she is supercilious and often bitter. QUOI and LIEN are the only self-effacing characters. They will stay in the background except when they get emotional.

Accents will vary. TAO, TUAN, SAM, and DUC speak perfect English; QUOI speaks only a few words of it. The others range between these extremes.

At first, some of the refugees will be dressed in traditional Vietnamese garb. This will change as the play goes along.

TIME

Early May, 1975.

Act I, Scene 1

A quadrant in Tent City, near Ft. Walton Beach, Florida in early May, 1975. An efficient-looking tent, constructed of two-by-fours and heavy canvas, takes up most of the right rear portion of the stage. A few boards and pipes, evidence of recent construction, are scattered about. A dozen or more Vietnamese refugees are milling around the compound—talking, smoking, playing chess, etc. From time to time they will look upwards toward stage right or stage left when a military-sounding voice comes over a loudspeaker.

(DUC, dressed in mostly Vietnamese garb, enters from stage right and looks around thoughtfully. TUAN crosses from the opposite side of the stage and heads toward the tent with an air of dejection. Before TUAN can reach the tent, however, DUC steps in his path.)

DUC: Hello, Mr. Hoang.

TUAN: Hello . . .

DUC: I’ve been waiting to talk to you.

TUAN: Do you know me?

DUC: I saw you on the ship.

TUAN: There were a lot of us on the ship.

DUC: I heard someone say you were a doctor.

TUAN: Yes, I am.

DUC: Ah, I should have talked to you before I became sick.

TUAN: What was the matter with you?

DUC: I don’t know—some kind of American virus. I only just got out of the medical ward. I haven’t had any news in weeks. Why are there so many of us still here in the camp?

TUAN: There aren’t enough sponsors to go around, but half the camp is gone already. If you hadn’t been sick, you’d probably be gone as well.

DUC: Perhaps, but why is a man of your talents still here?

TUAN: My family is here, and I go with them.

DUC: That’s very honorable. How many are in your family?

TUAN: My mother, my wife, my brother and his wife, my sister, and my young son. Seven of us.

LOUDSPEAKER: Attention please. Will Vu Kinh Thao please report to the INS tent for clearance. (This is repeated in French and Vietnamese, as are all such announcements.)

TUAN: There goes someone else to Immigration.

DUC: But seven people is a lot.

TUAN: We have faith.

DUC: With all the hell our country has been going through for the last twenty years? (He laughs.) You are indeed an optimist, my friend. Or are you just religious?

TUAN: Maybe a little of both, or maybe it’s all the same. Do you have a family?

DUC: My parents died in an air raid on Hue. Their whole house was leveled to rubble. I was away from home when it happened.

TUAN: You’re lucky to have escaped.

DUC: Perhaps.

(TAO emerges from the tent, pushing her mother in a wheelchair. She nods icily at TUAN as she passes by.)

DUC: Your wife?

TUAN: My sister Tao.

LOUDSPEAKER: Attention please. Representatives from the Orlando Chamber of Commerce are giving away oranges and Walt Disney World T-shirts. Anyone wanting to have their picture taken with Mickey Mouse please report to the Red Cross tent. (This is repeated in French and Vietnamese.)

DUC (following TAO with his eyes): Your sister is a very lovely young woman. (TUAN nods reflectively.) And the old lady; she is your mother?

TUAN: Yes.

DUC: What is the matter with her?

TUAN: We don’t know. She hasn’t spoken since we left Saigon. Sometimes she doesn’t move from one day to the next.

DUC: Perhaps she’s just old.

TUAN: She’s not so very old. She has been under a great strain . . .

DUC: We are all under a great strain. Do you see those men over there? (He nods vaguely toward stage left, where PHU and a few others are milling about.)

TUAN: What about them?

DUC: Do you know them?

TUAN: Some of them are from Saigon. I’ve seen them around. One was badly wounded in the war. Another spent some time in jail.

DUC: I heard them talking.

TUAN: You say that as if there is something sinister in men talking.

DUC: They are restless. They are tired of living in tents.

TUAN: There’s nothing strange about that. All of us are tired of it. Who wants to eat other people’s food in mess tents and to be photographed in Mickey Mouse T-shirts? We all want our own homes and kitchens and jobs.

DUC: They are wondering why only professional people are finding sponsors. Why not the laborers and ex-soldiers as well?

TUAN: We are chosen according to need, and, after all, most of us who made the trip are professional people.

DUC: I know that. In Hue, I was a dentist.

TUAN: Ah, you too?

DUC: We were all well off then.

TUAN: Yes. (He ponders something for a moment.) Tell me, you were in the medical tent?

DUC: I told you.

TUAN: How are the facilities, the instruments, the techniques?

DUC: Why don’t you just go in and see for yourself?

TUAN: When we had been here for a few days, I went up to one of the orderlies and told him I was a doctor. I asked if I could help tend the sick but he just hustled me out the door without an explanation.

DUC: Americans are secretive.

TUAN: But not to let a doctor volunteer his services—what does it mean?

DUC: Don’t worry about it.

TUAN: It’s hard to keep from worrying. I just came from the Social Rehabilitative Services tent.

DUC: Looking for a sponsor?

TUAN: Of course. Every day for over a month now.

DUC: Nothing?

TUAN: Nothing. There are still too many refugees to go around,

DUC: It is a big country. Something will turn up.

TUAN: My brother is still there waiting.

DUC: In the tent?

TUAN: Yes. He has made friends with the director, but the director can only process what the sponsors ask for. A married couple in the right circumstances would be snapped up immediately, and I have seen several families twice as large as mine processed out through pity by church groups. We are not small enough to be manageable and not large enough to be pitiful.

DUC: Why not separate for a while? You would have a better chance of surviving and of finding good jobs.

TUAN: We have