Sadec 1965: A Love Story
Written and Performed by Flora Le
Presented by United Solo Festival
Theatre One at Theatre Row | 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036
April 11, 2025
Photo Credit by Forest Ferns Photography
Beyond Distance Lies the Soul
Flora Le splices time sequences, traveling between lands. Piecing recollections of a conversation with her friend in Montreal, she thinks back to her teen years seeking unavailable men, using drugs, experiencing an HIV scare, and then finally, choosing to set her sights on college. The emotion of love is misplaced, rather than forgotten. By age 31, wanderlust combines with the necessity to visit her father's homeland in Vietnam.
While so many look to Ho Chi Minh or Saigon as a destination, Flora rides her motorcycle all the way to her father's hometown of Sadec. Discovering the roots of her ancestors before finding the greatest potential in herself, Flora begins unafraid. Presenting in black leather pants and an olive shirt, she is entirely credible as the newbie in a longer tradition of road adventures through Vietnam. As the countryside entices, caution gives way to fulfillment. The soul open to travel finds realization through exploration. Flora's elegant manner is outdone by a psycho-physical trauma that presents after a near crash on her bike.
Stunned that she has not been injured, but still quite shaken, she continues. She finally meets Dang, and a warm place in her heart opens to the possibility of hope and love beyond friendship. Conversations take her to greater highs and lows, but somewhere in the journey, she finally connects to the visceral emotions that have propelled her the whole time.
Memories are triggered of days stuck in a hospital room with a father who is no longer responding to medication. Reflecting on his choices, leaving Vietnam, marrying a French Canadian woman, having children, he seems nowhere near a victim of circumstance, but rather, an older man riddled with quiet despair. Deciding whether or not to stay with him had consumed Flora's thinking. Later, in Vietnam, at a Buddhist memorial, she places her father's urn with so many from his hometown, settling with a contented peace while finally giving her father a resting place with his own.
Sadec 1965 was performed on April 11th at Theatre One at Theatre Row, located at 410 W. 42nd Street in New York City. Flora Le will return again to perform in Sadec 1965 later this Fall. United Solo Theatre is celebrating its 18th year.
Review by Marcina Zaccaria.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on April 14th, 2025. All rights reserved.