CRITIC’S PICK: “For all of its surprises, including action sequences I won’t spoil here, the play falters only when it tips into obviously earnest territory. Nguyen doesn’t need a surrogate to detail his intent; the story soars on its own.”
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4/5 Stars- "A merry mashup of hip-hop, pop culture, cursing and kung fu, buoyed by winning performances and plenty of heart...It’s the familiar making-it-in-America plot as reimagined by a first-generation kid raised on a steady diet of U.S. music, movies, and especially comics and animation...He gets to create his own heroic universe, where Asian-Americans get a full share of powers and glory."
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“It is as if the dialogue and the songs were written for different productions, with characters frequently contradicting their earlier thoughts in repetitive, derivative raps...While Sebastian and Levin give their hearts to their characters, each song chips away at this work.”
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“For a titular, heart-of-the-show, bring-us-to-our-feet chorus, that quatrain doesn’t hold its weight. The rhymes could use more discipline, and the content feels like an empowering wash. Nguyen has spent the play showing us that none of these people is perfect, because they’re whole people — struggling, failing, loving, trying again.”
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“The small theatrical miracle of ‘Poor Yella Rednecks’ is its ability to embrace the mythic style...while highlighting the real and persistent struggles immigrants to this country have faced and continue to face in 2023. It’s a strange and intoxicating mix that makes this play a rare and satisfying watch.”
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“ ‘Poor Yella Rednecks’ is lively and affecting, and Maureen Sebastian knocks Tong, the put-upon wife and mother struggling to adjust to alien territory, out of the park. But it does make one serious misstep.”
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“The Manhattan Theatre Club production is directed with a very deft hand by May Adrales who expertly juggles the comedy and pathos without missing a single beat. And that’s quite an accomplishment considering all the wacky directions it takes to navigate this wild ride of a show.”
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Although playwright Qui Nguyen declared early in his earlier play Vietgone that “all characters appearing in this work are fictitious,” in his sequel Poor Yella Rednecks now at Manhattan Theatre, co-commissioned with South Coast Repertory, the playwright played by Jon Norman Schneider begins by interviewing his 70-year-old mother Tong Nguyen about how his parents built a life in America as Vietnamese refugees. Directed by May Adrales who also directed the earlier play in the same exuberant fashion, the resulting flashbacks are raucous, raunchy and poignant. In what was originally announced as a quintet of plays, Poor Yella Rednecks is now described as the middle play of a trilogy.
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