Vancouver playwright and actor Sangeeta Wylie learned a valuable lesson from her father as a child in Newfoundland.

“The thing he told us when we were growing up was if you understand someone, you don’t judge them,” Wylie told the Straight by phone. “And if you judge them, you don’t understand them. That was a mantra that was embedded in me.”

This philosophy of striving to understand people underscores Wylie’s play, we the same, which will premiere online on November 3 from the Cultch Historic Theatre. Combining dialogue with dance, live music, and animation, it tells the story of a mother sharing her heartwrenching story with her daughter of escaping Vietnam in 1979 aboard a boat. At sea, the refugees encountered typhoons and pirate attacks before being shipwrecked.

Directed by Diane Brown, the play features actors Elizabeth Thai, Grace Le, Chris Lam, Brandy Le, Quynh Mi, and Khaira Ledeyo. According to Wylie, it’s inspired by a true story.

Wylie, who has South Asian ancestry, embarked on this project after attending a barbecue at the house of her neighbour, a member of the Truong family. They were all new to the area at the time, and were served Vietnamese salad rolls and homemade peanut sauce.

At first, Wylie didn’t realize that the host was from Vietnam, and after discovering this, she asked what it was like for her to come to Canada.

That’s when the woman launched into her mother’s story. The daughter wasn’t aware of all the details, but mentioned that the family was separated from the father and that there were six people in the boat under the age of eight.

“As she was telling me this story, things went from one level to the next level,” Wylie recalled. “Everybody’s jaws were dropping.”

A few months earlier, the producing artistic director of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Donna Yamamoto, had approached Wylie about submitting a script to her group’s new play development program. So Wylie asked her neighbour if she could meet her mother to see if she would share her experiences for the purpose of a play.

“We met and we loved each other, and she told me this story over three days,” Wylie said. “And I watched as her and her daughter were both present. I watched their relationship grow.”

That’s when Wylie realized that the play should not only be about their incredible escape from Vietnam, but also incorporate a second aspect—the mother sharing the story with the daughter for the first time, 40 years later.

“We don’t always ask our parents our stories,” the playwright related. “And so that became really the spine of it for me.”

In the course of her research, Wylie travelled to Malaysia and Vietnam, learning more about the challenges that refugees fleeing Vietnam faced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And she came across a stunning coincidence: a fisherman’s dance that still exists in Vietnam today is of Sanskrit origin and is the same Bharatanatyam dance that she rehearsed as a child in Newfoundland with her Indian teacher.

In Vietnam, the Champa people are followers of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism as a result of past migrations from other areas, including South Asia. Wylie said that those who are Hindu prayed to Lord Shiva before heading out to sea to save them from whales.

“How is it possible that I did a dance when I was 11 that now shows up through this journey in Vietnam—and is now in this piece in some kind of modified way?” Wylie asked. “Life is full of crazy coincidences.”

It took four years for the play to reach the stage. But according to Wylie, it has been 40 years in the making.

“It has actually changed my life,” she said. “It has brought me reconciliation just as it has for the two characters in the play.”