Threads:
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Tonya Jone Miller,tells us the story of her mother who after many personal adventures, travelling around the USA and living in Hawaii, decided to go to Viet Nam to teach English, during the war. She tells of her husband who was posted overseas, how she survived while he was away, how she cared for a young vietnamese child, how she fell in love, how she became pregnant and eventually had to return to the USA and leave her vietnamese child in Saigon. Tonya Miller said she barely knew her Vietnamese father because her American Mother  barely spoke of him. I admit that the threads of the story line were not always clear and I had trouble following who the people where and where they went and why they disappeared. However there are traumatic events that take place when the young woman is in Saigon, the most difficult of all was her escape from the city as she was on the point of giving birth. It was a heroic feat that made the audience gasp.
On the other hand, it is a monologue and the programme shows neither director nor dramaturg which makes me believe that the actor / writer took the whole performance on herself. In any case it feels this way.
Even for an experienced actor, a second set of eyes and ears is always necessary. This piece clearly needed guidance. The movements around the stage were not always clear. The rhythm was erratic, too slow or unfocussed. It was often difficult to understand why she was waiting. And then there was the interpretation with all the snippets of stories. She had to organize the choices, build them up, slow them down, orchestrate the narrative moments to give more texture to the performance. The piece needed a real director!. The material was there, the director wasn’t and poor Tonya was trying her best to hold it all together but she needed help.