Caroline Guiela Nguyen's 'Saigon' at Romaeuropa Festival Explores Exile and Post-Colonial Identity

Caroline Guiela Nguyen (b. 1981), a Franco-Vietnamese director and resident artist at the Odeon in Paris, brought her acclaimed play 'Saigon' to the Romaeuropa Festival following successes at the Avignon Festival and Odeon. The work is set in a Vietnamese restaurant in Paris's 13th arrondissement, shifting between 1954—the last year of Vietnam's war of independence—and the present. Through this dual setting, Nguyen examines post-colonial identity, exile, memory, and the 'cammino del pianto' (path of tears) she identifies in Vietnamese culture. The play features eleven actors from Vietnamese, French, and Việt Kiều backgrounds, with language and food serving as central motifs. Nguyen emphasizes that the tears of her mother, a Vietnamese exile, belong to history and geography, not just to her. She rejects purely biographical performances, blending reality and fiction to allow actors to convey personal truths through fictional roles. The production also addresses the political weight of language, citing Annie Ernaux, and the role of cuisine in preserving memory across generations.