Review: DID MY GRANDFATHER KILL MY GRANDFATHER? Features Masterful Storytelling

One of the welcome changes that Peggy McKowen, Artistic Director of the Contemporary American Theater Festival, has made has been to create space in the Festival’s Summer repertoire for stories from West Virginia—the state that has hosted the CATF for nearly 35 years.  

Traditionally, when we come to CATF, we see new shows focused on the big city – healthy dollops of how they do it in New York, how they do it in LA, etc. But McKowen knows there are some amazing stories to be told by West Virginians themselves, and for this year’s festival our attention is richly rewarded by an evening spent with native son Cody LeRoy Wilson and his one-man show, “Did My Grandfather Kill My Grandfather?”

Director Victor Malana Maog helps to craft a truly engaging evening here; as a performer Wilson is engaging and often hilarious, joking with the audience and introducing us to the remote “holler” where he grew up, way off the grid, down a rough gravel road (and yeah, we get a brief lesson in the meanings of “holler” as part of the bargain). 

The heart of Wilson’s “Grandfather,” however, is the mystery and tragedy of not knowing your roots. Being of mixed Vietnamese and West Virginian descent, Wilson has lived the uniquely American experience of having his feet planted in two lands, and two peoples, at once.  Through Wilson’s compelling autobiographical story, we witness the challenges of being from a blended family—made all the more complicated by the fact that he will never know who his Vietnamese ancestors were, and which side they may have fought on during the Vietnam War. 

In his attempt to fill in the blanks in his family tree, we see Wilson imagining any number of possible scenarios, all of them achingly fictional.  And growing up, his desire to know more about his Asian roots wasn’t helped much by the fact that his High School history teacher thought a certain Hollywood movie starring Robin Williams was all he needed to know about the Vietnam War.  (His adoptive grandfather’s reticence didn’t help things either).  For all those unanswered questions, however, Wilson still takes pride in who he is, or rather the diversity that he represents, and it shows.

Scenic Designer Chelsea M. Warren creates just the right atmosphere with her portrait of a back roads, clapboard farmhouse and its front porch, made even more engaging by Christian Frederickson’s ambient sound design, complete with crickets and mourning doves.  And Mona Kasra’s projection design, glancing off the clapboards, illustrates Wilson’s story, introducing you to family members both known and unknown.

This year’s CATF features two brilliant storytellers—one, Wilson, in the early days of his career, and the other, Kevin Kling, a seasoned performer whose “Unraveled” is deeply moving in its own unique way—see my forthcoming review for that as well.  All the more reason to venture out to Shepherdstown this July.

Production Photo:  Cody LeRoy Wilson.  Photo by Seth Freeman.

The 2025 Contemporary American Theater Festival will run from July 11 through August 3, on the campus of Shepherd University in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia.