Near the end of the first act of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band, the cast delivers a blazing cover of the real-life Cambodian-American rock band Dengue Fever’s “One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula.” It’s the kind of music that makes your synapses light up like firecrackers sparking over a riptide of endorphins. It’s April 1974. We are in Cambodia. The band is called Cyclos, and its members know exactly how good they are. Their future is incandescent.
All the actors play their own instruments onstage, giving Cyclos a sound that veers from giddy melodic joy to dissonant nihilism. Wiltshire’s vocals soar about the wailing strings and pounding percussion like a hard-rock benediction. As Leng, Cyclos’s lead guitarist, Matthew C. Yee delivers a star turn that melds flawless technique with scorching emotion (Christopher Thomas Pow takes over the role April 22). As Chum, Watanabe hammers home the bass and creates a character that surprises and takes on new dimensions with every word he utters. Chan’s Duch is disarmingly charismatic, a war criminal with an irresistible smile and a morally murky backstory.
