Performing Remembering: Women's Memories of War in Vietnam

341 Pages·2018·5.1 MB·English

by  Rivka Syd Eisner

Performing
Remembering
Women’s Memories
of War in Vietnam
Rivka Syd Eisner
Contemporary
Performance
InterActions
Series editors: Elaine Aston
and Brian Singleton
Contemporary Performance InterActions
Series Editors
Elaine Aston
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK
Brian Singleton
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Theatre’s performative InterActions with the politics of sex, race and class,
with questions of social and political justice, form the focus of the
Contemporary Performance InterActions series. Performative InterActions
are those that aspire to affect, contest or transform. International in scope,
CPI publishes monographs and edited collections dedicated to the
InterActions of contemporary practitioners, performances and theatres
located in any world context.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14918
Rivka Syd Eisner
Performing
Remembering
Women’s Memories of War in Vietnam
Rivka Syd Eisner
University of Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland
Contemporary Performance InterActions
ISBN 978-3-319-73614-3 ISBN 978-3-319-73615-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73615-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937523
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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Cover photo © Rivka Syd Eisner
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With love to Mark and Viggo
In memory of Đặng Hồng Nhựt (1936–2017)
A
cknowledgments
Years ago when this project first began, I had little idea where it would
lead, nor did I realize the vast number of people whose expertise, camara-
derie, and encouragement would become invaluable to the evolution and
completion of this book.
To start, this work would not have been possible without Della Pollock,
who has been essential at every step. I am ever grateful for your generous
tutelage, laughter, and friendship. You are an inspiration, and the elo-
quence and thoughtfulness you bring to your work, and to everything you
touch, is unsurpassed.
I am especially fortunate to have had initial, vital support and guidance
from D. Soyini Madison, Derek Goldman, Lawrence Grossberg, Jacquelyn
D. Hall, and Christopher T. Nelson. Your wisdom and perspectives have
been crucial. Friends and colleagues—spanning the globe from Chapel
Hill to Ho Chi Minh City, Aarhus to Melbourne, Singapore to Zurich to
the San Juan Islands—whose encouragement and insights have been
somehow embedded within these pages include Paul Rae, Peter Eckersall,
Tracy C.  Davis, Rebecca Schneider, Britta Timm Knudsen, Rósa
Magnúsdóttir, Gunhild Borggreen, Elisa Ganzer, Lisa B. Y. Calvente,
Greg Siegel, Michelle Cohen, Eric Karchmer, Jonathan Weiler, Mark
Olson, Sharif Razzaque, Trude Bennett, Howard Machtinger, E.P.M.,
Diana and Stan Levy, Susan Hammond, Mary Nash, Judy Jackson, Linda
Jacobs, Ea Sola, and many others. I am extremely grateful for sustenance
and sisterhood from Anne Chandler Fordham, Kari Boyd Gardiner, Amber
Peterman, Nicole Bell, Marianne Petrea Jacobsen, Nicole Larsen, and
Michele Tan.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In Ho Chi Minh City, I am ever indebted to cô Nhựt, cô Xuân, cô
Điṇ h, cô Kim Dung, cô Liên, and all the members of the Former Women
Political Prisoner Performance Group. Thank you for making me wel-
come at your rehearsals, inviting me into your homes, and taking the time
to tell me about your lives. Your tireless energy, strength, and enduring
optimism continue to renew my belief in the powerful covalence between
the individual and the social that makes both tradition and change possi-
ble. To the doctors, nurses, assistants, and especially the children at Làng
Hòa Bình, thank you for allowing me to become a regular visitor for a
time and for showing me the importance of small, everyday acts of
kindness.
Special recognition and deepest thanks to the extraordinary chi ̣T., her
mother and family, for being the first to teach me about memories of war,
and Vietnam, and for inspiring this work. I have relied on your extensive
knowledge and astute advice at all stages of this project in immeasurable
ways.
I am exceedingly grateful to my collaborator and dear sister Hương,
whose friendship, hours of labor, and invaluable insights made this project
possible and all the more meaningful.
Over the years, numerous friends from Vietnam have generously
offered their insights, time, energy, and care. I am indebted to Nguyễn
Thanh Tuâń for your expert photography skills and for accomplishing a
number of trans-global tasks on my behalf. For various reasons I am not
able to include the names of everyone who has meaningfully contributed
to this project, but I trust you know who you are and I offer my heartfelt
appreciation.
Generous financial and institutional support made this book possible,
including from: the Department of Communication Studies at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), the UNC Center for
Global Initiatives (CGI) and director Niklaus Steiner, the CGI REACH
Fellowship’s anonymous donor and reviewers, the Foreign Language and
Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship made possible by the US Department of
Education and the CGI. Essential support for this project was also pro-
vided by P.E.O. International, with special thanks to the Chapel Hill chap-
ter members, as well as the Latané Center for Human Science. Sincere
thanks to the National University of Singapore Department of English
Language and Literature and director of Theatre Studies, Yong Li Lan,
and to Jan Ifversen and the Department of History and Area Studies at
ACKNOWLEDGMENT S xi
Aarhus University, for valuable postdoctoral experiences. Further gratitude
goes to The Danish Council for Independent Research | Humanities
(FKK) for generous financial support during my time in Aarhus.
Most recently, I wish to thank the Office for Faculty Affairs at ETH
Zürich and the directors of the URPP Asia and Europe at the University
of Zurich, with particular appreciation to Madeleine Lüthy, Mareile
Flitsch, Wolfgang Behr, Annuska Derks, Simone Müller, and Inge
Ammering for the opportunity to write and engage with a vibrant com-
munity of scholars, and to Roman Benz for technical assistance at critical
moments. This book project also greatly benefited from a fully enriching
summer spent at the University of Washington’s Helen Riaboff Whiteley
Center at the Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL). Thank you to FHL
Director Billie J. Swalla and the entire staff including the ever-helpful
Aimee Urata and Kathy Cowell, and to Pema Kitaeff and Soren Huber for
caring for Viggo so attentively and giving me time to breathe, focus, and
finish.
Great thanks extends to Palgrave Macmillan Editors Tomas René and
Vicky Bates, and to all on the editorial and design team, for their patience,
professionalism, and for answering a seemingly endless stream of ques-
tions. Elaine Aston and Brian Singleton were most generous to invite this
book to be part of their Contemporary Performance InterActions series
and I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers who offered their time and
valuable insights.
TDR: The Drama Review (New York University and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) editors and MIT Press generously granted per-
mission to reuse content first published in the journal. Sincere thanks also
to the reviewers for their helpful comments.
Deepest appreciation to my parents, Jerry and Marilyn Eisner, who,
since the very beginning, have given their endless devotion, support, and
love. You were the first to tell me “stories without pictures or pages,”
which was surely the spark that lit my passion for life stories, oral tradition,
memory, and performance years ago. In this light, I am also grateful to my
ancestors—grandparents Harry, Gladys, Cora, Ducie, and Noel—who
were all storytellers. To Avram, my brother, and Tova, my sister, I offer
immeasurable thanks for your lifelong camaraderie, unassuming wisdom,
and for providing much-needed laughter and lightness.
Lastly, I am profoundly grateful to Mark and Viggo, who have more
than anyone borne the strains of this project with me, particularly over the
past year. My greatest appreciation to Mark, for lovingly and generously