By the End, ‘Monster’ Is a Different Beast

A seemingly assimilated Vietnamese American teenager is missing from his mobile home in a suburb of Los Angeles. One of his classmates, a more recent arrival from Vietnam, is in the hospital after being assaulted near the school. A Vietnamese American detective is on the case.

‘Monster,’ by Derek Nguyen, begins as a contemporary noir narrative but ends as something quite different--a subtly spooky script that casts aside realism to become a poignant reflection on the haunted psychological journey faced by Vietnamese Americans and other veterans of America’s blighted experiences in Vietnam.

The first part of ‘Monster’ includes some apparently clumsy moments--but that impression is somewhat mitigated later, when you realize what Nguyen is up to. The second half takes such an imaginative leap that the play becomes, on balance, one of East West’s most successful premieres since the company moved to Little Tokyo. It’s also the company’s first play by a Vietnamese American.

Flora (Diana Kay Cameron), a waitress, has hired detective Tran (Trieu Tran) to find her missing 15-year-old son. Years ago, the boy was adopted from Vietnam by Flora and her now ex-husband, Wray (Richard Ruyle). Wray is a war veteran whose exposure to Agent Orange led doctors to advise him not to sire children of his own.

Tran identifies with the missing boy because he, too, was adopted from Vietnam at an early age. But he is puzzled as he learns that the boy is now suspected of being one of those who beat up their immigrant classmate Khoi (Nghia Luu). Why would a Vietnamese American teenager join the school jocks in a hate crime against another Vietnamese kid?

As usual for noir detectives, this one has his own troubles. His handicapped infant daughter recently died. His marriage to Molly (Nicole Porter) is collapsing.

But Nguyen begins breaking out of the noir tradition with little details fairly soon. A few of these are unnecessarily awkward. Too often, a line from earlier in the play is briefly repeated as a flashback, accompanied by a spotlight and an echo effect to hammer home its new resonance.

On a pickier level, how does the detective so easily find out that the missing boy’s girlfriend recently sought an abortion? Or this: Did Nguyen know, when he set his play in ‘the fictional city of Sun Valley, Calif.,’ that there is a real Sun Valley neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley?

By the time the play’s biggest twist takes place, however, it’s clear that Nguyen has many things on his mind besides fidelity to a genre or to objective facts. We won’t discuss the details of that twist; just be prepared for some mind-bending.

Tim Dang’s staging follows the play’s contours, with Tran’s performance evolving slowly from an early tentativeness into a powerful passion. Cameron’s Flora is commendably absent of the cool elegance that’s usually found in the wealthier women who employ noir private eyes.

Patricia Belcher plays a counselor and then adds most of the play’s comic notes as an underappreciated but sympathetic worker at an adoption agency. Porter switches between the roles of Tran’s wife and the missing boy’s girlfriend so adeptly that I was unaware she was the same actress until I checked the program. Khoi as the wounded immigrant and Brian Kolodziej as the head jock are especially good in their brief scenes.

Victoria Petrovich’s big blue set isn’t representational but still seems too solid and monolithic for a script that has so many little scenes and flashbacks. But Guido Girardi’s lighting adds clarity as well as atmosphere, and Nathan Wang’s ominous sound effects heighten the suspense.

*

‘Monster,’ David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Little Tokyo. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. (dark this Saturday afternoon). $25-$30. (213) 625-7000. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

Trieu Tran: Detective Tran

Diana Kay Cameron: Flora

Richard Ruyle: Wray

Sharon Omi: Mai Vi/Flight Attendant

Nghia Luu: Khoi

Patricia Belcher: Rosa/Shawna

Brian Kolodziej: Eric

Nicole Porter: Molly/Katie

By Derek Nguyen. Directed by Tim Dang. Set Victoria Petrovich. Costumes Steven N. Lee. Lighting Guido Girardi. Sound Nathan Wang. Stage manager Ricardo Figueroa.