Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Precious Cargo
Sruth-mara in association with An Lanntair
Genre: Biographical Drama, Historical, Storytelling, Theatre
Venue: Summerhall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Precious Cargo explores the lives of Vietnam war adoptees. The writing is sensitive and engaging, weaving the many stories with skill and respect. The political aspect of the war is explored in rarely seen ways, highlighting the negative depiction in media of Black American GIs, a visit to a hospital with the children of the victims affected by Agent Orange, and the conflicting ways some Australians see the Vietnam war. Precious Cargo is a nuanced exploration of a forgotten and unexplored side of history, showing the complexities of living between two worlds, even worse, two worlds that have been at war.
Review
After the Vietnam war ended in 1975 thousands of Vietnamese babies were adopted by USA, Australian and European families, being flown in cardboard boxes in an international humanitarian initiative called Babylift. Precious Cargo explores the lives of Vietnam war adoptees. The play is made out of writer/performer Barton Williams’ experience, composer of the show Andy Yearly’s and other four adoptees’.
Williams dives into his own experience growing up in Australia, not looking like his family or his peers, exploring the bullying an Asian man experiences in a country of such nature as well. The other adoptees have similar and sometimes more extreme experiences, either in their present or their past. Precious Cargo also examines what it is like for the adoptees to visit Vietnam, a place where they are from but where they also don’t feel like they belong to. In an effort to find their lost relatives many take DNA tests and start to get leads to their heritage and potential answers.
The writing is sensitive and engaging, weaving the many stories with skill and respect. Williams’ story is the only one that is performed as the others are played recordings over projections. Barton Williams is a strong performer, convincingly playing Australians and Vietnamese as well as the Asian stereotypes he is forced to play as an actor in the industry. The creator’s story is nuanced and interesting but it does need more vulnerability, it stays surface level, unlike the stories on the interviews. These stories could’ve been explored further as well as they had incredible dramatic potential.
It is worth saying that the Demonstration Room at Summerhall did not have the quality for the show. The skylight was in need of maintenance and its broken coverings made very loud noises with the strong winds, which made the recordings difficult to hear at times, even more taking into account that each recording had different volumes. Fixing these technical issues would’ve made the impact of the recorded interviews even higher.
The political aspect of the war is explored in rarely seen ways, highlighting the negative depiction in media of Black American GIs, a visit to a hospital with the children of the victims affected by Agent Orange, and the conflicting ways some Australians see the Vietnam war. Williams’ dad regrets the US roping Australia into the war but her mom says “Be careful how you talk about Americans, we wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for them”. These parts are incredibly interesting but seem to hold their punches. Maybe a stronger political focus would’ve taken the spotlight of the adoptees, but I personally believe it would’ve layered the story even more.
The set, video, light and sound design come together beautifully. Several agglomerations of cardboard boxes tower over the performer. Both the backdrop and the walls of boxes function as screens onto which to project the video design that accompanies the story, both taking the audience to the places narrated by the performer and the recordings, but also cleverly reminding them of the boxes the babies came in.
Precious Cargo is a nuanced exploration of a forgotten and unexplored side of history, showing the complexities of living between two worlds, even worse, two worlds that have been at war. Its only pitfall is leaving you wanting more, more exploration of each story, more vulnerability, more political views of the characters. I personally would love to see an extended version of the play some day. This does not take away from the astounding task of finding the adoptees and sharing their stories for the world to see, which was done in a beautiful, skillful and unique way. Precious Cargo brings to light a key part of history that must not be forgotten.
