Yellow Face (play)

Yellow Face is a semi-autobiographical play by David Henry Hwang, featuring the author himself as the protagonist, mounting his 1993 play Face Value. The play's themes include questions of race and of the interaction between media and politics.^[1]

Production history

Yellow Face premiered in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in association with East West Players in May 2007.^[2]

The play opened Off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater on December 10, 2007 and closed on January 13, 2008. Directed by Leigh Silverman, the cast featured Hoon Lee and Noah Bean as the leads.^[3][4] Hwang won his third Obie Award in Playwriting and he was a third-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.^[4]

In 2013, the play was produced as a two-part YouTube video directed and adapted by Jeff Liu, starring Ryun Yu as DHH, Sab Shimono as HYH, and Christopher Gorham as Marcus G. Dahlman, with the rest of the cast played by Ki Hong Lee, Emily Kuroda, Linda Park, Justin James Hughes, Michael Krawic, and Tracy Winters.

In 2013, Yellow Face made its UK premiere at Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, London on 21 May, produced by Special Relationship Productions and directed by Alex Sims.^[1] This production transferred to the Royal National Theatre on 5 May 2014.^[5]

The play is currently published by Theatre Communications Group and in an acting edition by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Background

In an interview, Hwang explained: "It’s a memoir – a kind of unreliable memoir. The main character is named after me and based on me. There are some things in it that are true and there are some things in it that aren’t true. ... The story of 'Yellow Face' dates back to the 'Miss Saigon' controversy in 1990. That was when I was involved in the big casting controversy... I just naturally tend to write humorously, and for me, it’s not an issue of trying to write lines that are funny. I don’t think that works. It’s having a situation that’s inherently comic and then trying to be truthful to the character in that situation."^[6]

Plot summary

When the musical Miss Saigon transferred from London to New York City, there was a controversy over the casting of Jonathan Pryce, a white British actor, in an Asian role. Although Hwang received a lot of publicity about his protests against the casting, particularly as the first Asian-American playwright to win a Tony Award (for M. Butterfly), the production of Miss Saigon continued without changes to the cast.

In Yellow Face, the character Hwang accidentally casts a white man, Marcus G. Dahlman, as an Asian in one of the leading roles of Face Value. Comedy ensues as Hwang is first convinced and then tries to convince other people that Marcus has Asian ancestry as a Jew from Siberia. Hwang realizes that Marcus has no Asian blood, but by then, Face Value has cost $2 million and Hwang tries to cover up his mistake. Marcus, however, continues playing his role as an Asian in all parts of his life, becoming an activist for Asian rights, angering Hwang, who views him as an "ethnic tourist."

The play further explores Hwang's relationship to his father and the relationship of the Chinese community to America. The father is a successful immigrant who built a large bank in California, and after some political contributions, gets investigated by Sen. Fred Thompson as a Chinese who funnels money from China to influence American politics. The investigations bears resemblance to that of Wen Ho Lee. In the course of this, the protagonist and Marcus get implicated as Chinese collaborators. As Marcus' true identity reveals him as Caucasian, Thompsons's investigation breaks down, but Hwang now has to come clean about Marcus and about himself.

Casts

Original UK Cast, Park Theatre and Royal National Theatre

See also

• Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood

References

External links

• Yellow Face at the Internet off-Broadway Database