Written & Performed by Richard Vergette

Directed by Andy Jordan & Andrew Pearson    

Review by Dominic Corr

Tickets: £15.00 (Con available)

It’s an ugly chapter of history. One so seldom spoken of, certainly outside of the States, and rarely spoken with the perspective and genuine understanding, the Vietnam War remains one of the most brutal and devastating, crimson-stained pages of America’s legacy.

A revision of an original script from two years ago, Born in the USA (Leaving Vietnam), takes a step forward, introducing audiences to Jimmy – a typical, decent American mechanic who served in Vietnam. Written and performed by Richard Vergette, audiences find Jimmy at the crossroads of another of America’s decisive moments: a consequence of a generation of men disillusioned by the nation that abandoned so many and led to the deaths of over sixty thousand (dwarfed in comparison to the civilian losses of Vietnam) Americans. Amongst those who returned home, they would later find solace and presumed understanding in a man who would fracture the nation in a way not seen since the onset of the War: Donald Trump. Ironically, one of the men who ‘escaped’ the draft of young American men to Vietnam.

There’s an immediate weight to Vergette’s performance – neither intimidating nor a push-over. They expertly keep the audience on edge – unsure of how to take or react to this man who, eloquent and passionate, grinds against what the oft public perceptions of the Vietnam War are, or at least interpretations of it, and once the dawning realisation of political populism enters the production – the tension is time-halting. The sorrow, anger, and pain in Vergette’s performance are the closest thing to PTSD and survivor guilt that many (hopefully) will ever need to endure. But how they move through shades of humanity in their expression of grief in discussing fallen friends and Jimmy’s eventual reconciliation with the son of a former comrade is agonising but profound.

Not all pain; there are elements of laughter in this cathartic, even healing script. And as the run settles in, there’s little question that a visit to Jimmy’s rundown mechanic shop is more than deserving of the audience’s time. Well paced, and with a solid structure and set design, there seem to be additional elements of lighting which were plagued with the usual Fringe-opening gremlins, so likely, they would enhance the shifting tone and emotions even more powerfully.

With the guttural belly roars of the extreme right-wing growing in volume (and violence), Born in the USA (Leaving Vietnam)offers an earthen, honest insight into the mindset of those too often cast aside and lumped into an easily written-off category. Vergette’s script fosters a much-needed bridge between the perceptions of ‘Left vs. Right’ to show how communities of people who feel excluded, washed-up, and left behind, exist. And to treat them with the ridicule and judgements which are often pressed onto them has led to the rise of such volatile and dangerous men like Trump, Farage, and Johnston.

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