A Dream in Hanoi Home
highly entertaining
—Seattle Weekly

Seattle Weekly Review

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| Phillip Fradkin |

Reviews
May 16, 2002

A DREAM IN HANOl

U.S.A./Vietnam, 2002. Director Tom Weidlinger
Sun.,June 9, 9:30 p.m., Broadway Perf. Hall
Thurs., June 13, 4:30 p.m., Harvard Exit

Call this documentary Project Greenhorn. When Shakespeare/Vietnamese culture prof Lorelle Browning founded the Vietnam America Theater Exchange, she had high hopes for a warm ’n’ fuzzy cross-cultural collaboration. After several years spent securing funding, contacts, actors, and staff, Browning finally sets off for Vietnam to mount a six-week touring production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—a play never before seen in that country—in concert with Hanoi’s Central Dramatic Company. There’s plenty of back-stage drama in this highly entertaining and well-paced making-of documentary (narrated by F. Murray Abraham). Heated creative disagreernents erupt, and the possibility that President Bill Clinton himseif might attend opening night sets everyone abuzz. With two co-directors, two casts, two spoken languages, and two opposing textual interpretations, the Bard himself would’ve stomped out of rehearsals in frustration.

World premiere. —Emily Russ