Yellow Face (play): Difference between revisions
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'''''Yellow Face''''' is a semi-autobiographical play by [[David Henry Hwang]], featuring the author himself as the protagonist, mounting his 1993 play ''[[Face Value (play)|Face Value]]''. The play's themes include questions of race and of the interaction between media and politics.<ref name=ParkWebsite/> |
'''''Yellow Face''''' is a semi-autobiographical play by [[David Henry Hwang]], featuring the author himself as the protagonist, DHH, mounting his 1993 play ''[[Face Value (play)|Face Value]]''. The play's themes include questions of race and of the interaction between media and politics.<ref name=ParkWebsite/> |
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==Production history== |
==Production history== |
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Revision as of 10:26, 3 March 2021
| Yellow Face | |
|---|---|
| Written by | David Henry Hwang |
| Characters | DHH Marcus G. Dahlman HYH Leah Anne Cho Stuart Ostrow Rocco Palmieri Jane Krakowski Miles Newman The Announcer Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel (NWOAOC) and others |
| Date premiered | May 2007 |
| Place premiered | Mark Taper Forum |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | Culture/Race |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | 1990 to the present. New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Guizhou Province |
Yellow Face is a semi-autobiographical play by David Henry Hwang, featuring the author himself as the protagonist, DHH, 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 May 21, produced by Special Relationship Productions and directed by Alex Sims.[1] This production transferred to the Royal National Theatre on May 5, 2014.[5]
The play is currently published by Theatre Communications Group and in an acting edition by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
The fictionalized DHH also appears in Hwang's musical Soft Power.
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
Yellow Face opens with the controversy over the casting of Jonathan Pryce, a white British actor, in an Asian role in Miss Saigon as the musical transfers from London to New York City. Although DHH receives a lot of publicity about his protests against the casting, especially as the first Asian-American playwright to win a Tony Award (for M. Butterfly), the production of Miss Saigon ultimately continues without changes to the cast.
DHH then writes the play Face Value, based partly on the Miss Saigon controversy, and accidentally casts a white man, Marcus G. Dahlman, as one of the lead Asian roles in Face Value. DHH is first convinced that Marcus is part Asian but eventually realizes Marcus has no Asian blood. Still, he tries to convince the public that Marcus does have Asian ancestry as a Jew with Siberian ancestry. Though he is successful in convincing others that Marcus is Asian, Face Value still loses $2 million, and DHH 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 DHH, who views him as an "ethnic tourist" due to Marcus' not actually being Asian.
The play further explores DHH's relationship to his father, HYH, and the relationship of the Chinese community to America. HYH is a successful immigrant who built the Far East National Bank in California. After contributing monetarily to political campaigns, he, along with others including Wen Ho Lee, gets investigated by Sen. Fred Thompson, who believes he is attempting to funnel money from China to influence American politics. In the course of this, DHH and Marcus get implicated as Chinese collaborators. As Marcus' true identity reveals himself as Caucasian, Thompson's investigation breaks down, but DHH now has to come clean about Marcus and about himself.
Casts
Original UK Cast, Park Theatre and Royal National Theatre
| LA Actor[2] | NYC Actor[3] | UK Actor[1][5] | Hong Kong Actor[7] | Character(s)[8][9] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hoon Lee | Hoon Lee | Kevin Shen | 魯文傑(Simon Lo) | DHH |
| Peter Scanavino | Noah Bean | Ben Starr | Micah Sandt (孫麥凱) | Marcus G. Dahlman |
| Anthony Torn | Anthony Torn | Christy Meyer | 宋本浩 | The Announcer/Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel |
| Lucas Caleb Rooney | Lucas Caleb Rooney | John Schwab | 張滿源 | Stuart Ostrow/Rocco Palmieri/others |
| Julienne Hanzelka Kim | Julienne Hanzelka Kim | Gemma Chan | 謝冰盈 | Leah Anne Cho/others |
| Kathryn Layng | Kathryn Layng | Davina Perera | 鄭雅芝 | Jane Krakowski/Miles Newman/others |
| Tzi Ma | Francis Jue | David Yip | 楊吉璽 | HYH/others |
See also
References
- ^ a b c "Yellow Face". ParkTheatre.co.uk. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ a b Verini, Bob. "Review: 'Yellow Face'". Variety.com. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ a b Denton, Martin. "Yellow Face". NYTheatre.com. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ a b "'Yellow Face' 2007" lortel.org, accessed October 11, 2015
- ^ a b "Yellow Face". NationalTheatre.org.uk. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
- ^ Winyan Soo Hoo. "Bearing the ‘Yellow Face': Q&A with David Henry Hwang" Washington Post, February 22, 2014
- ^ "Pants Theatre Production". Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- ^ Yellow Face programme. London: Park Theatre. 2013.
- ^ Yellow Face programme. London: National Theatre. 2014.