Colonialism is Terrible, But Pho is Delicious

Our starter takes place in 19th-century French Indochina, where a native finds herself in the kitchen of a colonial aristocrat. The second serving finds us in 1990’s Ho Chi Minh city as two Americans make first contact with the local breakfast. And for dessert, the charms of gentrifying modern-day Brooklyn.

A three-course tasting menu of the tension that simmers between authorship and ownership across food culture, told across the history of Vietnamese noodle soup.

Director: Ken Savage

Dramaturg: Nakissa Etemad

Assistant Dramaturg: Natalia Duong

Producers: LINDA K. BREWER AND TONI REMBE

Dustin Chinn

Dustin Chinn is a Seattle native whose plays include Snowflakes, Or Rare White People, I Am Nakamura, The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan Commission Herschel: Portrait Of A Killer and Let’s Ninja Science Ranger Team Get!

He has developed work at the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep Summer Residency Lab, A.C.T.’s New Strands Festival, the University of Washington via a Mellon Creative Fellowship, SPACE on Ryder Farm, UMass at Amherst New Play Lab and Vampire Cowboys. He has also written for the 52nd Street Project.

Dustin is a member of the Ars Nova Play Group and Ma-Yi Writers Lab. BA: Cornell University.

“Two Internet dust-ups inspired this play: the first, when chef Tyler Akin cut a video for Bon Appetit titled PSA: This is How You Should Be Eating Pho.
The second was a blog post by Sporkful editor Dan Pashman, who suggested improving bibimbap by using a bundt cake pan (even though he’d only eaten it twice).

They got me thinking about how the concepts of authorship and ownership relate to the culinary world.

And so, another Chinese dude finds himself taking advantage of Vietnamese resources for personal gain. Gulp.”

– Dustin H. Chinn