Review by Kate Gaul
How would you feel if you had grown up in a country in which you had no biological or cultural connections?
The fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong on 30 April 1975. The event marked the end of the Vietnam War and the collapse of the South Vietnamese state, leading to a transition period and the formal reunification of Vietnam into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under communist rule on 2 July 1976.
“Operation Babylift” was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to Australia and other western countries (including USA, France, West Germany, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War on April 3–26, 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been airlifted, although the actual number has been variously reported. Along with “Operation New Life”, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world.
“Precious Cargo” grew out of a chance meeting in autumn 2021. Australian actor Barton Williams, a Vietnam war orphan, was visiting Lewis as one of the cast of “Silent Roar”, a feature film about Hebridean surfers. Both had been raised by white families, growing up as virtually the only Asian child in small, overwhelmingly white communities, with no connection to their Vietnamese language or heritage. Both had later travelled back to Vietnam in the hope of finding their biological families but had returned home with no answers – a common experience for adoptees, so much information having been lost in the chaos of war.
As the audience enter, we are confronted with a stage, strewn with cardboard boxes, the setting for the most extraordinary of human stories. During “Operation Babylift” infants were transported in cardboard boxes and packed onto planes. Vintage film projected onto the boxes is haunting. Barton Williams performs this one-person documentary play which tells the story of the lives of six Vietnam war adoptees and how they were always connected. Some have discovered biological connections across the globe, many have not. It’s a challenging story of children born into a world at war and a seering reminder of our need to know where we are from.
Barton tells his story with characteristic Australian larrikinisms; his challenge to become an Aussie nipper; the love he held for his adoptive mother in particular and her unwavering belief in him. This is a lesser-known Australian story but it is clearly that of literally thousands. It deserves to be heard far and wide and let’s hope it makes its way back to Australia.
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