Vietnamese-American playwright Katie Đỗ's debut, Love You Long Time (Already), travels across realms, beginning in the afterlife with a whimsical heaven built from a character's happiest moments. The play spans several decades in the life of one family, mixing naturalism with dreams, fantasy, and interior life. This formal inventiveness, however, renders the drama diffuse, leaching its emotive power rather than adding layers, according to a review.
Mother-Daughter Relationship at the Core
At heart, the play centers on the mother-daughter relationship between the indomitable but depressed Mai (Tuyen Do) and her daughter Tâm (Molly Harris). Mai, hurt by her unfaithful husband Long (Jon Chew), disapproves of Tâm's desire to become a writer instead of settling down as a pharmacist. Their rows, especially around Tâm's relationship with Huy (Zheng Xi Yong), do not delve particularly deep.
The play takes place mostly in Mai's house in a town on the East Coast of the US, covering intergenerational friction, migration, and artistic aspirations — more than it can possibly deal with in 90 minutes. Directed by Jennifer Tang, it does not feel big enough to span a lifetime, with some scenes so short that they cannot sustain the emotions they are trying to evoke. The characters are slight, too, with attempts to reveal their psychologies spoken out loud.
Incident-Led Drama Lacks Depth
The drama seems led by incident across Mai's lifetime: Long comes and goes; Tâm heads to Iowa to study creative writing, then to New York. Christianity is a feature but is literally depicted, with characters speaking of going to church rather than exploring underlying meanings about faith.
The mother-daughter relationship intensifies towards the end, as the drama settles into straightforward realism and becomes more moving. When it loops back to the afterlife, you get a glimmer of what this play could be, with greater focus and intensity.
Love You Long Time (Already) is at Theatre503, London, until 25 July.
