Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on YELLOW FACE (with major spoiler!)
Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on YELLOW FACE (with major spoiler!)
#1Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on YELLOW FACE (with major spoiler!)
Posted: 1/6/08 at 5:26pm
After I saw Celia at the New World Stages.. I decided to see more plays or musicals about group minorities living in United States....
E23 
Yellow Face
New Play by David Henry Hwang (OFF-BROADWAY)
Public Theater /Martinson Hall
1/5/08 2 pm matinee
2 hours & 25 mins with 1 intermission
Tix Price : $40.00 (thru Broadwaybox discount)
INTRO :
I have a 2nd cousin in Chicago. His name is Junior. Actually he is my second cousin in a Filipino extended family which means that his Dad and my mother are 1st cousins. (In America- his Dad should be my second cousin, but that's not how it is on Filipino Extended Family- his father is my Uncle and he is my second cousin)..
Okay... why do I felt the need to talk about him? When I came to visit him in Chicago in 2001- he came out to me that he is gay too.. not that I dont know it...He confided in me during my visit..to make the story short...he told me some secrets about him..that only two gay cousins can talk and share.... he love to cruise at gay.com's chat room.He also told me that he was assuming another identity at the chat room. and I told him.. what do you mean by that? He told me.. when people ask him his race.. he would say that ...he is white.
Synopis of the Play:
This play is an autobiographical play by David Henry Hwang. The only Asian-American playwright to ever win a Tony Award for M. Butterfly in 1988-the play started just when Miss Saigon was supposed to transfer on Broadway in early 1990's. David protested against Jonathan Pryce for being cast as an Eurasian pimp that should have been played by male Asian actor (So it is an Eurasian pimp now instead of an Asian pimp) ..He thinks it was descrimation against Asian Actors-for him .. its a white actor putting a YELLOW FACE all over again.. to play an Asian Character ( like in the case of David Carradine instead of Bruce Lee- in Kung Fu TV Series) to his disgust -David decided to write a play called FACE VALUE starring Jane Krakowski & his newly discovered Asian actor..well Eurasian actor named Marcus G to be premiered at the Colonial Theater in Boston in the 1992. Somehow, David discovered that Marcus was not really Asian at all... Actually his father is Jewish... David ignored this and concocted a tale that his father is a Jew and he is from Siberia (Siberia being at the top of China) so Marcus is really an Asian-Siberian Jew. The most important part is how you see yourself, not your race- per DHH. The play opened with negative reviews in Boston and he decided to fire Marcus.. Actually the play did not even opened in NYC...
Act 2 follows with Marcus touring for THE KING & I and trying to pass as Asian. David felt that he created Marcus and he should go public that he is not really Asian at all... and stopped pretending to be one. By this time.. Marcus got so involved with the Asian Community and he is also dating David's ex-girlfrend Leah... David was soo upset with Marcus that he confronted him several time to come out clean about his true "race". Though more and more Asian- Americans are loving Marcus and accepting him as their own kind . At this time too- late 1990's there was an investigation about Chinese immigrants contribution to Presidential Campaign funds... there was a rumor that China was trying to influence the outcome of the Presidential Election in 1996. Marcus and David's father was one of the targets of this investigation along with Wen-Ho Lee, the Chinese American scientist who was imprisoned on suspicious of spying in the late 1990's.
To end all this descrimination... David convinced Marcus to go public about his true race and identity and to point out how the government is geting out of control with the investigation, even an American citizen like Marcus became a target of this witch hunt..but then David has to come clean too about the fact that he ignored the knowledge that marcus was not really Asian, but yet he still cast him in FACE VALUE- almost a hypocrisy against his protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce.
*************MAJOR SPOILER TO BE REVEALED*************************************
The play ended at David's father funeral (his father succumbed to cancer) and Marcus confronted David to come clean about something.....
That David and Marcus are only 1 person... the white Marcus is David's alter ego and creation..... Before the ending Marcus asked David to write him a good ending....
**************END OF SPOILER ***************************************************
Marcus backed now in a remote Guizhou Province in China .. where he hears the song of this Chinese people- where the song cannot be sung by 1 person.. it needs to be sung collectively..... Marcus joined the group and he become one with them.
---End of the Play----
3 Things I Like about the Play
1. Hoon Lee as David Henry Hwang- I thought he is excellent as HHD. His acting itself is worth the price of admission. You can even see his mouth shaking when he is angry or frustrated. I was very impressed with him.
Hoon Lee as DHH and Noah Bean as Marcus 
2. Francis Jue-as David's father, B.D. Wong and so many other roles- He is really a standout in this play. No one can forget his character as the pushy dad of David Hwang..who told his son... You should probably write something like .."Miss Saigon"!..he is very funny and everytime he is onstage..the whole stage light up..
Francis Jue as David's father & Hoon Lee as David Henry Hwang 
3. The Lighting was good.
3 Things I Did not Like about the Play
1. ACT 1 is very dynamic while some parts of ACT 2 specially the ending is a bit dragging. I thought the play was too long too and they could have trimmed it to 2 hours, instead of 2 1/2.
2. I felt like the play was still not very polish, though very thought provoking about someone's cultural identity in US.. I felt like the play really has no TRUE direction.. there's alot of themes that has no common bond...its like watching a montages of pictures with no cohesive theme...
3. Staging was very bare. I was sitting at Row A.. (to my suprised.. I was sitting next to Ms. Marian Seldes 
) and all I can see is a bare stage with lights and brick walls.. It was my first time at the Martinson Hall- and you can really tell it was a library before bec. I can still see the grand arches at the ceiling.
In Summary:
I was soo 50/50 with the play.. I cannot really decide whether I like the play or not... There was some evident problems with the play. Though after thinking about it... for quite some time... it lead me back to my cousin Junior (sorry to be soo personal and the banal need to share this) I just realized as to why he did that- not that its RIGHT . David Henry Hwang made some clear points about the play and I think based on what I saw this was his messages:
1. Asian males are unfairly judge in America . America have certain sterotypes about Asian male.(like they have small penn*s- I cant belive that was mentioned in the play..LOL! and that they are geeks or nerds ) Asian females are more viewed as sexy than their male counterparts.
2. Sometimes... people who are product of discriminations.. not only job descrimination...but the "certain perceptions" about a group of minority which could lead to putting up a MASK to hide the damage that was done by power of popular perceptions by media perhaps? ....that could later developed into insecurities... there was a Chinese saying that was mentioned in the play.. "the mask you wear is youre real self"
I guess.. I will go with I LIKE THE Play bec. I can see what David Henry Hwang is trying to say.... I guess to some people who seen the show people will think that he rants soo much.... or whine.... but I dont see it that way... and he said at the ending that an Artist has a power... which is to write..... which he really made a point- though I felt that somehow there's a lot of bitterness and anger which has no closure even at the end of the play.
Score : 3/3- I LIKE IT !
The Public Theater 
Production Photos
Noah Beane (Marcus) and Hoon Lee (David Henry Hwang) 
Hoon Lee (David Henry Hwang) and Julienne Hanzelka Kim (Leah) 
The Playbill 
Updated On: 1/6/08 at 05:26 PM
#2re: Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on YELLOW FACE (with major spoiler!)
Posted: 1/6/08 at 5:37pm
I hear you about the second cousin thing. I'm Filipino as well!
~Steven
#2re: Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on YELLOW FACE (with major spoiler!)
Posted: 1/6/08 at 6:11pm
BTW- an interesting article about the play on TDF.org
***************** 
Amazing "Face"
David Henry Hwang's new satire stirs fact, fiction and identity politics into a heady and remarkably relevant brew.
What do a nearly 20-year-old Broadway casting controversy and a 10-year-old federal banking investigation have to say to the political moment at the dawn of 2008? Quite a lot, in fact, based on the evidence of Yellow Face, David Henry Hwang's new play, extended at the Public Theatre through Jan. 13.
The twin inspirations for the play are a pair of real-life incidents that put Hwang's name in the headlines. Not long after winning the Tony for writing the play M Butterfly, Hwang used his celebrity to spearhead protests against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian pimp in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon. And near the end of the 1990s, Hwang's father, an Asian-American banking pioneer based in Southern California, was caught up in over-reaching federal investigations of Chinese-American political donations and alleged espionage.
Between these two extremes--a controversy fueled by political correctness, and a case of arguable yellow-peril racism--Hwang found a play, and another way to write about some of the themes he's treated since his early play F.O.B.
"Since the failure of Face Value, I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to write another comedy of racial identity, but I didn't have a form," says Hwang, referring to his 1993 flop, inspired by the Miss Saigon controversy, which never made it past previews on Broadway. "Then, starting about 2000, a couple of Asian filmmakers cast me as myself in their films. And then I saw I Am My Own Wife, and Doug Wright puts himself in the play as 'Doug.' " By then, Hwang knew he wanted to bookend a play with the Miss Saigon controversy and the federal targeting of his father. "I could have created a fictional playwright called 'Bill Lee,' but I thought it would be easier to just put myself in it."
In the play, which Hwang has called a "mockumentary," actor Hoon Lee stars as the playwright, though we don't see many scenes of him at his desk. Instead we see him tussling with such real-life figures as Miss Saigon producer Cameron Mackintosh and Saigon star (and one-time Hwang girlfriend) Lea Salonga; arguing the meaning of the American Dream with his Republican, Sinatra-loving father; and finally facing off with an unnamed investigative reporter from The New York Times, who proves to Hwang that, no matter how post-racial we may seem to be in these days of Obama fever, racism is not dead.
"That's a contradiction it's hard to get one's mind around," Hwang says. "The character becomes really confused after the whole Miss Saigon incident, and his fundamentalist certainty in identity politics becomes compromised. Only when he comes face to face with actual racism is he able to balance these two contradictory realities--that on the one hand race doesn't actually exist, and that there are a lot of silly things about identity politics, and at the same time, sometimes racist things still happen."
Indeed, though Hwang's views of the politics that motivated his P.C. protest are more complicated now, he didn't want to write a play that only made fun of them.
"I hadn't really seen a play that had satirized identity politics that wasn't just completely against it," Hwang explains. "I wanted to do something that both recognized what was silly about it and recognized its necessity. I mean, being an ethnic role model is simultaneously necessary and absurd, and I had to be able to understand both truths to write this play."
A crucial blow to Hwang's sense of identity politics came from a non-theatrical source.
"It's tricky, because identity politics and multiculturalism are things I was very involved in, and still am to an extent, but like any ideology, they're limited. But a big moment for me was the first cabinet of Bush II: It was the most multicultural cabinet in history, and also really lousy. So obviously there are some limits to identity politics."
Remarkably, Yellow Face is Hwang's first original straight play since 1997's Golden Child. He has spent the intervening years working on musical librettos (Flower Drum Song, Aida, Tarzan) and scripts for film and TV (Possession, Golden Gate, The Lost Empire). He's glad to be back.
"Writing a play, and being the principal artistic voice on a project, reminds me how incredibly exciting it is, and also how scary," Hwang says.
Clearly, the late-model Hwang is comfortable with mixed feelings--you might even call them his central subject.
David Henry Hwang >>>> 
Updated On: 1/6/08 at 06:11 PM
#3re: Jaystarr's 10/10 Report on YELLOW FACE (with major spoiler!)
Posted: 1/7/08 at 9:14am
bump for those who miss yesterday.
J*
