Photograph of Helene Embling, Nguyen Duc Duy, Benjamin Law and Beverley Wang at the Wheeler Centre — Photo: Jon Tjhia

People – families – of diaspora carry the traces of change: new circumstances, different languages, uncertainty and often trauma. How do the ghosts of history and geography affect the everyday experiences and identities of people today? And what happens when the places where your parents and grandparents lived no longer exist – or you don’t share a language with your parents because you grew up in different places?

For Asia TOPA 2020, theatre director Caroline Guiela Nguyen presented SAIGON – a moving family saga tracing the paths of 11 characters across history and space. In this podcast, her translator, Nguyen Duc Duy, joins Australian writer Benjamin Law for a conversation about language, theatre and comedy, and this incredible play that places the art of translation at centre stage. They also explore the intergenerational, intercultural dimensions of their work – treasured by audiences, but largely missing from international stages. Hosted by Beverley Wang, with translator Helene Embling.

Presented in partnership with Asia TOPA.