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Greencastle native Adam Tran stars in one-man show about Genghis Khan
CINCINNATI — The memory of a superhero film when he was a kid planted a seed that has grown into an actor’s first one-person show.
Greencastle native Adam Tran is currently acting in the premier of the Know Theatre of Cincinnati’s “Mongrel.” Tran wrote the one-man show about Genghis Khan, the Mongol conqueror and leader.
The outdoor play, which opened Thursday, runs through Sept. 12 at the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum in Cincinnati.
Tran spoke of how much of the history surrounding Khan is a mystery, from subjective sources from centuries later.
“The interesting thing about Genghis especially is that the only documented historical article we have about him is the ‘Secret History of the Mongols,’ which was ‘discovered’ some 200 years after his death,” Tran said. “So there’s a lot of mystery and a lot of conjecture. His life seems to be considerably more myth and subjectivity than a lot of people’s lives do. So in a way that gave me a lot of freedom.”
Still, Tran spoke of how he did copious research on his subject and tried to find ways to incorporate many of his sources into portraying this complex individual.
Even with all the research, though, Tran also remembers his first introduction to Khan was from a movie.
“There was the Alec Baldwin movie, ‘The Shadow,’ where Khan had been kept in ice or something,” Tran recalled. “That was my first introduction to him. Obviously he was a villain in that, but also being a young Asian-American kid in Greencastle, I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me. So, seeing people who looked like me on screen was always really interesting to me so he just sort of stuck out.”
So, after attending a reading of a friend’s one-woman show about Mary Shelley, Tran approached the theater’s artistic director about a similar idea for Genghis Khan.
“Genghis especially had always sort of been in my periphery and so it all sort of struck me like lightning, all at the same time,” Tran said. “I asked the artistic director sort of what goes into a one-person show. He was being sort of cagey with me. Then he called me and said the reason he was being cagey was because the theater was interested in developing this story with me. So that’s sort of the genesis of it and then I set about writing.”
While the writing “poured out pretty quick” for Tran, getting it to the stage was another matter. It was set for production last year, but life had other plans, as it did for so many things in 2020.
“There was definitely time during the beginning of COVID that I thought, ‘This show’s not gonna happen,’” Tran said. “So I kind of shelved it for a while and then we started talking about it again toward the end of last year. So then revisions and things were starting to be made after that.”
As for it being staged outdoors, that goes a lot deeper than precautions because of the pandemic.
“The artistic director sort of always saw it being an outdoor show,” Tran said. “The idea of having it outside the safety of the theater for theater-goers is an element that we were interested in and it sort of heightens the story.”
The plan also marks the first one-man show for Tran, his first writing credit and the first time Rebecca Ware has directed a one-person show. Tran says he’s heard others in theater speak of exhaustion, but he had previously laughed it off.
“But being the only person generating all the content? That’s a totally different story,” Tran said. “You have to take good care of yourself — make sure you’re resting enough, resting your voice.”
Following a “big lull” in his acting career due to the pandemic, Tran recently completed a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in the Indianapolis Shakespeare Co.’s brand new venue.
Though Tran now lives in Indianapolis, he still has Putnam County ties through his mom Carrie Zimmerman, his brother and sister and grandparents on both sides.
Out of high school for 17 years, Tran says he still owes retired Greencastle High School drama teacher Vickie Parker for believing in him.
“I wouldn’t have graduated from high school if it weren’t for Vickie Parker,” Tran said. “She saw, I think, a potential in me that the rest of the folks at the school were not seeing.
“She also realized that a lot of my lack of motivation came from boredom. So she definitely gave me more responsibility the second half of my junior and the entirety of my senior year. If it weren’t for my junior and senior year, I definitely wouldn’t have had a high enough GPA to graduate. I owe her a lot, actually.”
“Mongrel” is being presented live outdoors and streaming at knowtheatre.com.