By David Henry Hwang
Directed by Ted Hewlett
Running Time: 2 hours, including a 10-minute intermission.
Detailed Synopsis
History Behind Yellow Face
Read the Feature Story in SAMPAN
2023/24 Season Sponsors:
Paul Kastner
G. Lee & Diana Humphrey
Production Sponsors: James & Judith Barr
Celebrating 50 Years Corporate Sponsor:
Summary
Truth and fiction blur in David Henry Hwang’s satiric memoir about DHH, a playwright plunged into a whirlpool of missteps and unintentional hypocrisy after a vocal protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian hustler in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon. What he condemns as “yellowface” soon comes back to haunt him when he later misidentifies a Caucasian actor for mixed-race and casts him in his own Broadway-bound comedy. His personal integrity is compromised as he proceeds to conceal his blunder aiding the narrative of this “born-again Asian”. Ultimately a forceful argument for representation, this provocative and comical sideways glance at race and assimilation asks “who has the ownership of a culture?”
A note about the pre-show music for Yellow Face
Yellow Face explores numerous questions of identity and culture including who counts as Asian and what nuanced and varied expressions of Asian identity are possible beyond stereotypes. Inspired by these themes, sound designer Arshan Gailus invited the cast and stage management team for the show to choose the songs for the pre-show playlist. The songs they chose could be a reflection of their personal identities, their relationship to Asian-ness, their reaction to the themes of the play, or even just a song that they enjoy or feel a connection to. Arshan chose the openness of this invitation to highlight the infinite depth of identities and their rich blending - from different ethnic groups, different generations, diasporic and native cultures, third culture kids, and hybrid ancestral lineages - that there is no one way to be Asian or indeed any particular identity. So, the music you hear as you wait for the show to begin is a sonic collage representing varied and intersectional expressions of identity and culture as provided by the cast and stage management team of the show. It is an offering for you to enjoy and also perhaps a question: what does it mean to express your identity?
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
** Represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829 of the IATSE
° Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
