Writer: Katie Đỗ
Director: Jennifer Tang
A few times in Katie Đỗ’s new play love you long time (already), the characters mention that their lives are like those lived in a soap opera. But unfortunately, this self-referential nod does nothing to mitigate the fact that this play is a soap opera, replete with extramarital affairs and even a doctor in a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck. If you like 20th-century soap operas, this may be no issue.
However, love you long time (already) begins promisingly with Mai meeting her husband in the afterlife, where she is blessed (or doomed) to repeat the happiest moments of her life on Earth. The problem is that she’s only been happy once: the time when Long proposed to her in Vietnam. And Long isn’t going to stay in the afterlife with her forever; as a Buddhist, he’s got some more life cycles on Earth to complete.
Mai’s life crumbles when, now living in America, she discovers that Long is having an affair and has fathered a child. Mai tells her 15-year-old daughter Tâm not to mention their domestic issues to anyone outside of the house. The shame destroys Mai, who leaves her job at the factory to avoid gossiping humiliation. Even when Long returns, Mai remains reclusive.
Would-be-writer, Tâm starts to go out with Huy, a boy from the local church. But Huy, who has grown up without a father, has fathered a child with his ex. Tâm leaves him and goes to college in Iowa to pursue a degree in writing. She mines her life, particularly her relationship with her mother, for creative inspiration. But she can’t publish any of her work as it would, to her mother, be putting salt into unhealed wounds.
Spanning decades in the family’s life, Đỗ’s play has to omit great chunks of story, especially the two dramas that take place in the monastery. One is stock soap opera fodder, but the other one, concerning Long’s conversion to Buddhism, is very interesting. However, we never discover Long’s reasons for doing so, although the plot reveals Long’s selfishness rather than his supposed selflessness.
The script doesn’t really help the actors to shine, but Jon Chew as Long brings some light comedy to his role. Tuyen Do is slightly too histrionic as Mai, but she still manages to create some empathy for the character. Molly Harris’s Tâm is a little bland, while Zheng XI Yong, as the smarmy Huy, is solid.
As ever at Theatre503, the set is impressive, even though it remains a little of a mystery. TK Hay’s living-room space is almost made entirely of paper with just a few solid items of furniture, including, incongruously, a blue plastic stool.
Runs until 25 July 2026
