Saïgon, by Caroline Guiela Nguyen

Born to an Algerian “Pied-Noir” father and an exiled Vietnamese mother, Caroline Guiela Nguyen took some time to assemble the different pieces of her identity. After studying at the National Theatre School in Strasbourg, in 2009 she founded her company “Les Hommes Approximatifs” (“The Approximate Men”).

Within this structure, she combined professional and amateur actors in an initial play, Remembering Violetta (“Se souvenir de Violetta”) (2011). Her next work, The Sorrow (“Le Chagrin”) (2014), was haunted by both the present and by memory. This approach found its most successful form in Saïgon (2017), a play where she returns to her personal history.

To write Saïgon, Caroline Guiela Nguyen did more than draw on her personal history. She went in search of testimonies and stories in Ho Chi Minh City and the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The play and the cast emerged over the course of the rehearsals, with professional actors and ordinary people from Vietnam, France and elsewhere who are of Vietnamese origin.

A piece of writing that seeks to "release the imaginary directly from the stage" and which is an integral part of the method developed by the Les Hommes Approximatifs company.

To write Saïgon, Caroline Guiela Nguyen did more than draw on her personal history. She went in search of testimonies and stories in Ho Chi Minh City and the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The play and the cast emerged over the course of the rehearsals, with professional actors and ordinary people from Vietnam, France and elsewhere who are of Vietnamese origin.

A piece of writing that seeks to "release the imaginary directly from the stage" and which is an integral part of the method developed by the Les Hommes Approximatifs company.

Presented at the Avignon Festival in 2017, Caroline Guiela Nguyen was one of the revelations of the line-up. Thanks to her fine writing and highly cinematographic direction, Saïgon seduced the French and foreign press.

This enthusiastic welcome opened the door to an international tour in Europe and Asia. From Beijing in China to Berlin in Germany, spectators were given the chance to discover this singular play, with its seductive ability to transform a moment in contemporary French history into a universal tragedy.