Leaving Vietnam

by Richard Vergette

Overview

Jimmy Vandenberg, a decorated Vietnam war veteran, works alone in his garage, servicing the classic American cars of his youth, while struggling to forget the traumas of war. Abandoned by a nation still shamed by defeat, Trump’s call to ‘Make America Great Again’ speaks to Jimmy’s anger and resentment – and he is hooked. His new-found politics drives a wedge between him and his wife, but a chance visit by the son of a fallen comrade makes him doubt his convictions and leads to a moment of understanding and redemption.

A moving new solo play about the legacy of a war that America wants to forget.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912430956
Publisher:	Aurora Metro Books
Publication date:	04/01/2023
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Born in Lincolnshire, Richard was a drama teacher in the Yorkshire and Humber region for 30 years. Writing highlights include: An Englishman’s Home (24.7 Theatre Festival Manchester 2007), As We Forgive Them (24.7 Manchester Evening News nominee for Best New Play 2009), American Justice (Arts Theatre, London’s West End 2013), Pure (Mikron Theatre tour 2015-2016), Dancing Through The Shadows (Hull Truck, 2015), Dark Winter (Hull Truck 2018), Hunt the Tiger (R&D, Cast Theatre, Doncaster, for Andy Jordan Productions 2020), Missing You (audio drama produced by Made in Manchester, featuring June Brown in her final role 2020)

Table of Contents

Author biography

Theatre Company information

About the Play preface

Playtext of 'Leaving Vietnam'

Editorial Reviews

Richard Vergette in Leaving Vietnam, from Andy Jordan Productions, provides an insight into the lives of normal American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war. The play starts with his character Jimmy Vanderberg working in a Ford factory in Detroit. His life is straightforward and simple. But, as world politics heats up, he decides to fight in Vietnam to prove himself a man. 

 

Whilst in Vietnam, he befriends a Mexican soldier, Alveress, who makes him question his racist beliefs about foreigners. Alveress saves his life, and holds him accountable for his behaviour. Upon his return to America, he finds that his ‘simple’ relationship with his wife is no longer so straightforward. But, more than that, he clearly struggles with PTSD, and lives in an environment where he feels he cannot talk about the trauma he is grappling with. On top of this, as a soldier of a much-disputed war, rather than being treated as a hero he finds people, including his own family, questioning his choice to sign up and fight as a marine. 

The play fast forwards to recent political history, as we see Vanderberg become a Trump supporter, arguing he wanted to ‘make America great again’ as it was during the time of the Vietnam War. These beliefs are then challenged as he takes a trip to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington with Alveress’ son. 

The play highlights the dire effects society can have on men, who are encouraged to bottle their emotions up and not speak up about their trauma. Through the use of sharp prose, the play offers insight into the effects of PTSD on soldiers during battle but also upon their way home. It highlights the struggle of the many soldiers who, despite huge personal sacrifice, were not treated in the same heroic way as the soldiers from previous wars – despite the decision to go into war not being their fault, but the fault of politicians. 

The link between the soldiers losing their purpose, their ‘army family’, and being pressured to stay silent about the horrors they saw, and their later support for Trump, was really interesting. The added angle of Vanderberg’s wife comparing the Trump era to the riots in the 70s was fascinating, although personally I think more could have been made of this part of the play. 

Whilst the prose and the dialogue between the characters Vergette was depicting in his one man show was often poignant, there were moments when I felt it was too lengthy. For example, a long segment of the show was dedicated to the time in Vietnam, when more time could have been spent exploring the link to modern politics, and the link to Trump, as this provided a fascinating angle. 

However, overall, the show flowed really well, and successfully delved into an area of American politics and history with an angle that I thought was different, providing a much needed insight into one of the many reasons for Trump’s election win. It also highlighted the depth of the personal sacrifice soldiers from all around the world make for their country: whether the war is justifiable or not, their personal sacrifice remains unmatched.  * * * *

The Student Newspaper - Vicky Gothard

Richard Vergette writes and performs an original work about the emotional and psychological collateral damage of the Vietnam War. Vietnam has become the most cinematic and controversial conflict of the twentieth century, and as a cinephile I approached this work with a heightened sense of familiarity.

Vergette portrays ‘Dutch’, a young man from Monroe Michigan, who volunteers to join the Marines and serves one tour. Now, in his early seventies, he owns and works in his garage, and is trying (and failing) to understand the recurrent but fractured memories of the demilitarized zone (as well as his personal tragedy at the Battle of Huế). The early monologues establish Dutch as a working-class man, long since retired from his job at Ford, who is postponing his imminent retirement. Mise-en-scène is a workshop with no physical manifestation of the war; a visual which suggests to the audience that there is something incomplete or unfinished within this character.

It takes thirty minutes before Vergette’s script gets to ‘Nam, but the characterisations of Dutch and Alvarado (his Mexican buddy) are well-observed and evoke authentic representations of camaraderie in battle. Using his experiences in the war to inform and analyse Dutch’s current radicalisation under Trump, Vergette skilfully prevents his script becoming another in the ‘war is hell’ sub-genre, by recontextualising Dutch’s disillusionment with ‘Merica as decades old PTSD.

There is a great difference between a solo show that draws heavily on the performer’s own life, and one that is a fabrication drawing on thousands of hours of research, interviews and archival footage, with the overarching aim of using the past to help a current generation understand and navigate recent tumultuous developments. Vergette is believable as a veteran, and whilst his conversations with the other characters are well-rendered, he avoids distracting us with outright impersonations. It almost feels as though an old mechanic is telling his story, rather half-heartedly, instead of a tour-de-force of regional American accents.

These are minor quibbles because Vergette’s decade-spanning story interacts with the America of BLM, and Trump, and it builds to a powerful climax which is rendered more clearly and profoundly than any of the other images in the play. This is not merely a serious work derived from contemporary events but it aspires to something more transformative by cleverly establishing the events of five decades ago within the locus of recent events.  * * * *

Gonzo Magazine - John Gibson

‘Vergette builds a convincingly complex and damaged character... an ordinary soldier attempting to make sense of, not only his own actions, but those of his country… Vergette is an excellent storyteller – 

a master of surprise revelations…’ 

From the Publisher

Richard Vergette tells a superb story, deep within a well-conceived character; Leaving Vietnam is a relevant, and accomplished piece of theatre making.

In Leaving Vietnam, Richard Vergette creates Jimmy Vanderberg, former marine, and survivor of the Vietnam War, looking back on his life from the bench of the classic car-repair shop he will soon retire from running.

His story spans back to his life before the war, back to simpler days working for the Ford motor company, and before meeting Bernice, the woman he would marry, and is still married to. When the war is announced, it proves an undeniable calling to Jimmy to prove his manliness, his worthiness as a human being. He volunteers.

That choice will haunt him down the years that follow, the ghastly blood and misery-soaked experiences entrapping him with lost comrades, and preventing him from ever leaving.

Vergette creates a likeable character, a flawed man capable of both good, and evil. Weathered by life, but still standing, Jimmy is an honest teller of his own story. The storytelling is expertly paced, the evocation of times and spaces understated but more than sufficient. Vergette exhibits particular skill in creating the other characters which populate Jimmy’s world. These are real people possessed of distinct voice & thought, memorable characters which the audience can invest in.

The narrative develops naturally, though not slowly, the scenes each necessary to trace the line between Jimmy’s traumas, and blessings, and the man he will become. There’s an undeniably cinematic feel to the show being painted in the mind, and it does reach a suitably emotionally charged climax when our hero is finally given the chance to leave his demons in the past.

Perhaps the intra-Vietnam scenes are a little too understated, relying on popular knowledge of its abundance of desperately tragic miseries, but neither are they sanitized. Vergette has many talents as an actor, but his approach to grief struggles — just a little — to feel entirely genuine. If the tears are streaming down your face…then they probably need to stream.

Nonetheless this is an excellent exercise in the dramatic monologue, creating a fascinating character with a timely, and entertaining story. It’s a true piece-de-resistance when Jimmy brings out that ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, made all the more impressive when that turn to the right is detailed with nuance, and not disdain. Jimmy is no bigot, and certainly no white supremacist, but the play is clear on the consequences of abandoning, and villainising tranches of humanity, as so many veterans of Vietnam were. Sometimes, Leaving Vietnam shows, people make bad choices in the best faith available to them.

Ultimately a hopeful piece, Leaving Vietnam is a story of change, and the capacity for evolve towards a more compassionate philosophy towards ourselves and others. Richard Vergette tells a superb story, deep within a well-conceived character; it’s a relevant, and accomplished piece of theatre making. (W J Quinn, The Quintessential Review)

The Quintissential review - WJ Quinn