Everyman’s revelatory and poignant ‘Dawn’ can mend hearts

Tuyết Thị Phạm stars in the world premiere of her own play about a survivor of Khmer Rouge violence and her daughter. 

by Daniella Ignacio

There is something very poetic about walking in lightly falling snow to get to the Metro, then Union Station, then Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre to see a new play by Tuyết Thị Phạm: The name “Tuyết” means snow in Vietnamese. I certainly welcomed the chance to escape DC on Friday night after the worst week ever. Somehow, seeing an Asian family come to terms with grief and attempt to heal was exactly what I needed. 

In this world-premiere family history play, a Mother (played by Phạm herself) reconnects with her daughter, Mary (Ashley D. Nguyễn), after the death of Mary’s father, the person who had long held the family together. Still grieving, Mary holds a grudge against her mother, feeling that her mother has always been cagey about her past, and that she favors Mary’s older sister, who died as a baby. The Mother is a survivor of a Cambodian Khmer Rouge re-education camp, and relies on her Buddhist beliefs and customs to survive. In flashback scenes, we see the mother in her younger days (also played by Nguyễn) as she lives through the trauma of losing her firstborn daughter and mother in a Khmer-led bomb attack, and abuse from the Commune Director (Tony K. Nam). 

Like Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band, Dawn interrogates the trauma left by war and the struggles of second-generation immigrants. It’s a welcome addition to the canon, with its nuanced exploration of religion, spirituality, and understanding. This production, directed by Seonjae Kim, is an intimate epic. Phạm’s reflective, poetic writing, which prioritizes empathy, shines most in moments when characters show how they venerate one another, or how they do not. It breathes and flows quite exquisitely and with deep vulnerability. 

Read More in DC Theatre Arts...