1. BEQUEST OF WINGS: AN AMERICAN JOURNEY is a recent play you’ve submitted to The Baltimore Playwrights Festival. What is it about?
BEQUEST OF WINGS: AN AMERICAN JOURNEY by Nancy Arbuthnot and Le Pham Le, dramatizes the story of the Vietnamese refugee family of Mai Trương, her husband Minh, son Vinh, and American-born daughter Kim. The scenes shift back and forth in chronology to highlight war-inflected life in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s; the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the flight of the Trươngs to Malaysia; and their subsequent life in America as they struggle to adapt to a new land. The cast of characters includes U.S. military service members and their families who interact with the Trương family in both Vietnam and America Narrated mainly by the younger generation–Kim, Vinh and their friend Andre, the son of a wounded Vietnam veteran–the play maintains a central focus on Mai and Kim, who has become a U.S. Marine pilot. Vivid flashbacks and re-enactments of scenes the children know only secondhand, along with the use of iconic Vietnamese and American songs, provide a compelling, multifaceted perspective on the American experience and a troubling period of American history.
2. Why was it important to tell the story of BEQUEST OF WINGS: AN AMERICAN JOURNEY? What do you hope the audience will take away from the play?
Many stories of the Vietnam era have been told—and told beautifully. But the stories of the Vietnamese during the war years and later as refugees in America have not been presented in meaningful or realistic ways. In particular, the lives of young Vietnamese women often appear in a shallow, negative light. Ever since attending a performance of “Miss Saigon” years ago, Le Pham realized that she could tell a richer story that would not attack the personal dignity or sense of self of Vietnamese woman. Le and I—also a poet, and an American who came of age during the Vietnam War years–have been working together on Bequest of Wings for over ten years. Having grown from a narrower focus on one Vietnamese family and their journey to America to a widened lens that encompasses the lives of other Americans, we aim to tell a story universal in its confrontation with issues of love and war, intergenerational conflict, and self-identity.
We want to share a nuanced, three-dimensional portrait of a Vietnamese family and their life in America that goes beyond the too-often-perpetrated stereotypes. Through the poems and songs of this ancient land as well as attention to the sacrifices refugees make in leaving behind their country, we hope the audience will gain insight into Vietnamese history and culture. We hope too that the audience will come to a deeper awareness of such relics of war as post-traumatic stress syndrome and its effects on veterans and their families. Most of all, we hope that the audience will appreciate the interaction of cultures that so invigorates life in the United States of America.
3. Talk a bit about the choice of using verse to tell the story of BEQUEST OF WINGS.
Poetry is highly regarded in Vietnamese culture; lullabies, The Story of Kieu, the national epic familiar to all Vietnamese, and many folk sayings and tales are composed in rhyme. Because of this importance of poetry, and because both of us consider ourselves primarily poets, we chose to use a rhythmical, loosely- rhyming verse line as a concise and powerful means of presenting our play. In order to share our mutual respect for both Vietnamese and American culture and to create as dynamic a theatrical experience as we can, we include Vietnamese and American poems and songs throughout the play, particularly in the “song-trading contest” highlighted in Scene Six. The title phrase, “this bequest of wings,” comes from an Emily Dickinson poem.
4. Tell us about yourself.
Le Pham Le, born in Vietnam, is the author of a bilingual collection of poems, From Where The Wind Blows (translated into English with Nancy Arbuthnot), a trilingual collection, Waves Beyond Waves (with Nancy and Noriko Mizusaki) and three children’s books: Magical Voice In The Forest, Guava Hill, and Baby Sparrow Song. Her poems’ been published in several anthologies and periodicals. Le has received “Poems and Poet of The Month of June 2017” recognized by United Poet Laureate International-World Congress of Poets (UPLI-WCP),“Special Prize/Writing On America” awarded by Viet BaoMagazine, California and “Peace Poetry Golden Medallion” by UPLI-WCP, Japan. Le is retired from Los Medanos Community College.
Nancy Arbuthnot is a poet, artist and professor emerita, United States Naval Academy, Nancy conducts art and poetry workshops for children, veterans and homeless populations. In addition to the co-translations of Le Pham Le’s Vietnamese poems, Nancy’s published works include Postcards from the Border: Poems and Watercolor Meditations; Spirit Hovering: Poems and Guiding Lights: United States Naval Academy Monuments and Memorials. Nancy has received fellowships from the National Park Service, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Camargo Foundation, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts.
5. What are you working on now?
Le is working on a short memoir “My School Days” and an English translation, “Journey of a Dream,” of her essay “Hành-trình Một Giấc Mơ” written in Vietnamese. Nancy is working on “Blue Rhapsodies,” a poetic memoir of growing up in a navy family, and an illustrated collection of children’s stories, adaptations of folk stories from the Marshall Islands.
6. What is coming up next for you?
During COVID-19 Le has been able to spend time with her family, travel, exercise, cook, clean and do some home improvement projects. Nancy is looking forward to catching up on reading and writing, working on watercolors, and being a first-time grandmother.