It’s not often that a romantic comedy picks a war as a setting, but MTC’s Vietgone does just that, setting the love story between Quang (Raymond Lee) and Tong (Jennifer Ikeda) in an Arizona refugee camp during the Vietnam War. Hilarious and powerful, the play’s love story presents an incredibly moving family history as a son recounts the story of how his parents met.

We spoke to Paco Tolson, an ensemble actor who portrays an early admirer of Tong’s, a redneck biker, and the playwright himself, among other characters.

How did you originally become involved with Vietgone?

I’ve known Qui Nguyen [the playwright] for many years; we’ve worked together before. He’d seen me in a play, and we rode the L train home together one night, and we realized we had a lot of mutual respect for each other’s work. He asked me if I wanted to be a part of this project that did really fun stage combat mash-up shows, and we started working together. It was a very strong simpatico. I did about six shows with them, and then I ended up moving to LA. Then Qui got a commission a couple of years after that with the South Coast Rep to develop a new show, which ended up being Vietgone. Since he knew that I was in town, he brought me on board to be part of the development process. I got a chance to actually ride this all the way from Orange County to Oregon to Manhattan Theatre Club.

So you got to be a part of the project from the beginning? 

Yeah, it’s been a full year of my life!

It’s a fantastic show, so I think it was a year well spent! How do you think that being a part of the project for so long impacts your performance at the end of it?

There’s a great benefit to sinking deeper into these moments. It would be one thing if I was running the show straight for a year, but I’ve actually had three different casts every time. Almost all of my scenes are with the actor playing Tong, so I had to recalibrate everything for this new chemistry. And then at MTC, with Jennifer Ikeda, I’m just really trying to find the new chemistry. I haven’t had the chance to just rest. I’m always trying to find the best way to make this new scene work with this new actor. I have had a chance to refine some of the things that have been hard to land, like certain jokes. I get a chance to think, “that could be so much better!” Mostly it’s having the time to really think about it on a larger level, and have the work that I do not be a showcase for myself but to serve the play as a whole. Now I’m able to see the bigger picture in a much clearer way.

One of the characters that you play is the playwright himself. What is it like to bring so explicitly the process of writing the show into the show itself and your performance?

I’ve been a part of shows where Qui’s done the same thing. This feels much different. I think Qui has absolutely matured as a writer, and I think that the issues and the themes that he’s dealing with are much more personal, but are also on a larger human universal scale. So in and of itself that is amazing to be a part of, and watch that journey of development. In terms of playing Qui, I think he wasn’t expecting anyone who was doing this role to do an impression, but the nice thing is that there are some human truths in his relationship with his father that come out in the text regardless of who’s playing the role. So it’s been my privilege to know that and to know his family a little bit, and to know his wife and kids a little bit. I’ve been away since I was on the West Coast for a long time while the kids were growing up, so just to get an understanding of him as a father and as a husband, the different trials that you go through in life, have really found their way into the play. Knowing that about him and about the play is a privilege, it’s an honor.

It must be interesting to play someone that you know in person.

Yeah! And I was very nervous about it. It’s a burden of respect that he has for me and that I have for him, so I didn’t want to do it in a way that made him seem like he was portrayed in any kind of negative way. But I think he has a very self-effacing personal style. The opportunity to do something where the playwright exposes his own vulnerabilities and his own folly and his own conception of his family dynamic and what his father went through, what his mother went through – it’s very bold. I wanted to convey that with as much honesty and humor as I could, but not shy away from the fact that Qui had a very “come-to-Jesus” moment with his Dad in that scene, which is from life. That was a real interview that took place, dramatized, but from real life.

The play itself is so powerful. It’s hilarious, but it’s also very moving. In your view, what is the most important takeaway from Vietgone?

Human beings are human beings, and no matter what form or look or background they come from, everybody has the desire to be seen, the need to be loved, the need to be validated as a person who has value and worth just the way that they are. What this play does is say you may know someone who is different from you, but that difference is not a difference at all. It’s a façade. You may think of someone as being completely separate from you, but we’re all one. With all the immigration talk that’s in the air, the immigrants that we’re talking about in this fear-mongering way are people who have families, who are doctors, who are lawyers and teachers and moms, they all have the same desire to be parents, and love each other, and have lives that are productive and meaningful. It really draws it home, and makes the point very clearly that you may think there’s something separating another person from you, but that is all a lie. You are the same, we are all the same. We all deserve the same basic regard in each other’s eyes. The basic level of humanity that we all share, that really is the best takeaway.

That was definitely a really powerful part of the play! You play so many characters that you get to influence the themes of the show in different ways, what’s that experience like?

It’s great, but I’m also very conscious that in many ways the roles that I do are the antagonists, so every time I come out it means bad news for somebody. I’m always trying to frustrate the main characters. Understanding that and letting go of that for myself has been important. As an actor you want to be loved, and be the main character all the time, and sometimes the story and the role that you play dramaturgically trumps your own ego. I’m very aware of coming in, changing the energy, driving the plot, but doing it as energetically and dynamically as possible. And I think Qui’s script leaves a lot of room for that to happen. Format-wise, it plays very quickly, the scenes are very short, and it has a lot of artistic sitcom style and comic book style that’s very present. You have to punch it in the beginning, punch it as you go out, make an impression and leave. That’s basically something that’s always in my mind: am I bringing on a new energy, and am I leaving dramatically the scene in a place that has changed somehow?

Obviously you’ve been very immersed in Vietgone for a very long time, since you’ve been with it from the very beginning. Do you have any idea what’s next for you?

The thing that’s basically happening is fatherhood, my wife and I have a baby coming.

Congratulations!

Thank you! So it’ll be nice to put this aside for a minute and concentrate on some of the things that I’ve been hearing about for so long. The play deals directly with fatherhood and what you owe to your children and those kinds of responsibilities, so that’s something that I’ll finally have a chance to know what this guy’s talking about! I’ve been on the West Coast for a long time, and I’m kind of storming back to New York with this play that I really love, so I’m going to leave myself very open to the universe.