"See You Yesterday": Tomorrow Is Another Day

The Cast of "See You Yesterday"
(photo: Jacqueline Lessac)

See You Yesterday , the current production under the ArtsEmerson umbrella at the Paramount Theatre's Robert J. Orchard stage, is a fascinating phenomenon, part whimsy and part horror, as it recalls the Cambodian Genocide of 1975. And it works. Since 2012, Global Arts Corps has been in partnership with the Phare Performance Social Enterprise and the Phare Ponleu Selpak Association, with their stated purpose being “to bring together people from opposite sides of violent conflict”, and to “shatter the silence of history with each breath” as a “circus community creates a theater piece”. In the course of a mere sixty-five minutes, in its U.S. Premiere, nineteen Cambodian performers, second generation survivors of the four year Khmer Rouge reign, enthrall with fragmented narratives inherited from their parents and grandparents via their interviews (including one former Khmer Rouge child soldier). With their limber physical skills (from acrobatics to other circus arts), they travel back in time to destroy that legacy of silence.

Cast Members of "See You Yesterday"
(photo: Jacqueline Lessac)

In 1975, the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge, won the Cambodian civil war, seized the capital and overthrew the government. From then until 1979 the people lived under the Dictator Pol Pot who envisioned a “master race”; in just four years, he managed to wiped out a fourth of the country's population, and rid the country of its currency and religions, even stooping to the use of child soldiers (like the one this troupe met in one interview). In all, some 1.7 to 3 million people were executed, in what would become infamous as the Cambodian Genocide. The artists here, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty-five, are obviously a tight-knit community, as they applaud even when one or two of them briefly drop the ball, or juggling pin, or a fellow gymnast. This production was Directed by Michael Lessac, Artistic Director of Global Arts Corps, with Associate Artists Arben Bajraktaraj, Robert Berky and Andrew Buckland; the Director of the Circus was Khuon Det, Artistic Director of Phare Ponleu Selpak. It was energetically Choreographed by Chumvah Sodhachivy, with authentic-sounding Original Score by Michael Jay, dramatic Production and Lighting Design by Dave Feldman, eerie Sound Design by Scott Lehrer and simple subdued Costume Design by Vong Vannack.

 

The Cast of "See You Yesterday"
(photo: Jacqueline Lessac)

This work was both visually stunning and emotionally cathartic. For most of the piece, time flew, and the acts spoke louder than words as they portrayed the circus of life, at times becoming part of the landscape as human bridges or flowing rivers, conveying everything from birth to deaths, from torture and separation to freedom and escapes, always aware of the danger facing them both in the past and in their physical recreations of danger. Near the end the entire company forms a human pyramid (of victims or of resisters), never failing to act as a family representing their country with pride. If ethnic exposure and a sense of history are your thing, you shouldn't miss this brief but pithy reminder of the consequences of war.

See it before tomorrow becomes yesterday, through May 19^th only.