BROADWAY FOR KIDS

In the aftermath, Hwang accidentally casts a Caucasian actor in an Asian role in Face Value, his 1993 follow-up to M Butterfly.  What follows is an often humorous, often self-deprecating ride through the pitfalls of color-blind casting as well as the very definitions of ethnicities.  (Can a person whose family hails from Siberia be described as “of Asian ancestry?”  Of course – Siberia is in Asia, after all.)

 

That mis-cast Caucasian actor, here given a charm-filled and affecting performance by Ryan Eggold of TV’s New Amsterdam, embraces the label of “Asian actor,” even to the point of playing the lead in a production of The King and I, all to DHH’s embarrassment and chagrin.   With the generic “white” name of Marcus G. Dahlman, he quickly assumes the stage name of Marcus Gee to sell his “back story.”

 

Things soon get even more politically charged as DHH’s father, (here called HYH and played by Francis Jue -- also up for a Tony) is investigated by the FBI for spying for China.  HYH was president of the first American Federal Bank (Far East National) created by a Chinese-American and serving Asian-American immigrants; he had even opened a branch in Shanghai.  This was in the wake of the Wen Ho-Lee spying episode, and a nation-wide “China scare” was making political scapegoats of Chinese Americans.  Mr. Hwang drives home the bigoted basis of these persecutions by including a character called “Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel,” a New York Times reporter who threatens a lawsuit if he is named in the play.  This character is a seemingly “fair minded” reporter whose unconscious racism comes out in many ways, some subtle, some not so much.  His :interview” with DHH provides the dramatic center to the second act and is gripping even with its dark (sometime bitter) wit.

 

I like how the two plot threads – diametrically opposite in tone (the farce of the Marcus Gee story, the seriousness of the persecution of HYH) interweave to create a compelling and multi-layered tapestry.  What could have been a simple political screed of a play is instead a very memorable look at very real, very human characters with strong (and sometimes not-so-strong” passions and obsessions and ideologies as they attempt to navigate a world where their ”face” is their defining characteristic, and where their character is subsumed by how the world perceives them.

 

Mr. Hwang weaves together multiple real-life people with some cleverly disguised amalgams (and even some purely fictional characters) to create his narrative.  His supporting characters (numbering more than 30) are all played by a chameleonesque ensemble of five actors (including Mr. Jue) who play roles without regard to age, gender, or ethnicity.  I thought it was significant that all Asian characters seemed to be played by Asian actors (Mr. Jue, for example also plays Wen-Ho Lee and B.D. Wong), but that “conceit” isn’t consistent, as eventually, we see non-Asian actors play Margaret Cho and DHH’s mother.  These are ALL very good performances for a wide range of characters.  In addition to Mr. Jue, there is Keven del Agila, Leah Shannon Tyo, Marinda Anderson (who evokes a bellyful of laughter in her disparate portrayals of Cameron MacIntosh, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Krakowski, just to name three), with Greg Keller memorable as “Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel.” 

 

The play was directed by Leigh Silverman and moves very quickly from scene to scene, character to character, incident to incident.  The set is primarily two rotating platforms which create generic settings and keep transitions smooth and almost elegant.  Annette Jolles directs the TV version (filmed during a live performance during its final week last fall) by “keeping out of the way” of the production and ensuring the cameras in just the right place at just the right time.  

 

Yellow Face is a funny, sad, moving, even ridiculous chronicle of the gradual lessening of stereotype-based theatrical choices, reminding us that there is still a long way to go.  It is filled to the brim with people we (think we) know performed in a dizzying display of talent and characterization.  Everything in it may not be factual in the truest sense.  But the emotional truth, the impact of choices on real people, the bonds between father and son, the self-deprecating self-portrait of a very talented playwright, all come together in an illuminating and memorable television experience.

 

It reminds us that sometimes, the “face we create to meet the faces that we meet,” can be either revealing of who we really are, or a mask to protect us from those who see no deeper than the skin.

    --  Brad Rudy  (BKRudy@aol.com    #PBSGreatPerformances     #YelloFace)

 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/yellow-face-about/16696/

 

 

 

My May 2023 Thumbnail of the script:

 

YELLOW FACE

By David Henry Hwang

 

Originally Produced by the Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, May 10, 2007

Produced in Atlanta by DramaTech Theatre (Georgia Tech) November 8, 2019

 

A semi-autobiographical play, this is David Henry Hwang’s account of the brouhaha surrounding the casting of a British actor in “yellow face” in the American production of Miss Saigon.  At least that’s how it starts.  By play’s end, “DHH” (the character) has taken on the anti-Asian “purges” following the Wen Ho Lee affair and his own inherent racist blind sides.  A funny, moving, and self-deprecating examination of the creation of a play, the one we are in fact reading now.