Dramatists Play Service
The Joy Luck Club by Susan Kim, adapted from the novel by Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club tells the story of four older Chinese-American women and their complex relationships with their American-born daughters. The play moves from China in the early twentieth century and San Francisco from the 1950s to the 1980s, as the eight women struggle to reach across a seemingly unpassable chasm of culture, generation and expectations to find strength and happiness.
Yellow Face by
Photos by Michael Brosilow, 2011 Silk Road Rising Production
The lines between truth and fiction blur with hilarious and moving results in David Henry Hwang’s unreliable memoir. Asian-American playwright DHH, fresh off his Tony Award win for M. Butterfly, leads a protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon, condemning the practice as “yellowface.” His position soon comes back to haunt him when he mistakes a Caucasian actor, Marcus G. Dahlman, for mixed-race, and casts him in the lead Asian role of his own Broadway-bound comedy, Face Value. When DHH discovers the truth of Marcus’ ethnicity, he tries to conceal his blunder to protect his reputation as an Asian-American role model, by passing the actor off as a “Siberian Jew.” Meanwhile, DHH’s father, Henry Y. Hwang, an immigrant who loves the American Dream and Frank Sinatra, finds himself ensnared in the same web of late-1990’s anti-Chinese paranoia that also leads to the “Donorgate” scandal and the arrest of Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. As he clings to his old multicultural rhetoric, this new racist witch hunt forces DHH to confront the complex and ever-changing role that “face” plays in American life today.
Bondage by
In a Los Angeles S&M parlor, a dominatrix and her client are clad head-to-toe in leather costumes that conceal their faces and ethnicities. These elaborate disguises allow them to play out fantasies based on racial stereotypes and sexual mythologies: She pretends to be an African-American woman to his white, liberal man; he transforms into an Asian-American and she into a blond WASP, etc. Exchanging biting social observations with stinging humor, they progress through their power games to expose the arbitrariness of racially minded thinking. All the while, however, they are haunted by an awareness that in spite of their efforts, they may be moving towards the most terrifying reality of all—a true intimacy that transcends the bounds of race.
Chinglish by
Chinglish is a hilarious comedy about the challenges of doing business in a country whose language—and underlying cultural assumptions—can be worlds apart from those of the West. The play tells the adventures of Daniel, an American business-everyman from the Midwest, who hopes to establish his family’s sign-making business in China, only to learn what is lost and found in translation.
The Dance and the Railroad by
While his fellow workers are striking for higher pay, Lone, once an actor in China, exercises and practices alone on a mountaintop the ritual gestures used in Chinese opera. Ma, a slightly younger man, who wishes to become an actor, approaches him. Lone spurns him and insults the naive young man, but Ma returns day after day, eventually convincing Lone to train him as an actor. As Lone trains Ma in the ways of the Chinese opera, he also heaps a good deal of abuse on him, trying to rid him of some of his gullibility and to dissuade him from pursuing acting if he does not truly have the drive to suffer through all the work necessary to become a master of the art. Ma, however, is quite determined in his desire to become an actor and finally wins over Lone, just as the Chinese workers win their strike.
Family Devotions by
Ama and Popo, two elderly and devoutly Christian Chinese sisters, escaped with their family from China just before the Communist revolution. Their younger brother, Di-Gou, however, believed in the revolution, and returned to China. The two curmudgeonly sisters now live in Bel Air, California, with their daughters, Joanne and Hannah, and their daughters’ prosperous husbands, Wilbur and Robert. The married couples have completely embraced some of the worst aspects of being American, waste and total self-involvement. Their children, however, Jenny and Chester, are not this way and are preparing their own escapes by one going to college and the other taking a job with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The whole family eagerly awaits a visit from Di-Gou, whom the sisters have not seen in over thirty years. When he arrives it is clear he is not the man his sisters remember: a religious young man who went out on a tour of China with a Christian evangelist and who had converted the family. Now Di-Gou does not believe in God, and when his sisters go so far as to tie him up and beat him to try and remove the “demon spirit” from his body, he reveals that the evangelist they have revered for so long was a fake with an illegitimate child. They refuse to believe this, but Di-Gou pursues the matter and even asks them to return to China and Chinese ways. But this request, along with the shock of the religious revelation, kills the elderly women. As their daughters react in horror, Di-Gou slips away and Jenny and Chester also begin to make their exits.
Golden Child by
In the winter of 1918, progressive Chinese landowner Eng Tieng-Bin’s interest in Westernization and Christianity sets off a power struggle among his three wives, which will determine the future of his daughter, Ahn, Tieng-Bin’s favorite, his “golden child.”
FOB by
FOB is told in a style that moves quickly between myth and reality, with the characters occasionally speaking directly to the audience. Grace and Dale are cousins, living in the Los Angeles area and attending college. Dale is fully American, second generation. Grace is first generation and holds the customs of China in higher regard. The arrival of Steve, an exchange student and a newcomer from China, fresh off the boat, forces them to confront a number of conflicting feelings about America, China and themselves. Dale is very confrontational with Steve, mocking his English and manner. And in turn Steve is defiant and even provocative. Grace tries to keep the conflict from escalating but finds herself increasingly drawn to Steve. Grace decides to go with Steve to a school dance and an uneasy truce, of sorts, is reached between Dale and Steve.
The House of Sleeping Beauties by
A well-known novelist, Kawabata, visits a brothel in order to learn why older men frequent it. However this establishment is quite different from what he expected. Here the men simply sleep in the same bed with the beautiful young women provided, and the women never awaken or see them. The madam who runs the home carefully screens all of her potential guests and only accepts men who she deems worthy. Kawabata intends to write about the house, but slowly falls under its spell and finds himself unable to write the piece. He is troubled by thoughts of his own mortality and the suicide of his friend, the author Mishima. But the madam soothes him and with the aid of a mild sleeping potion, Kawabata finally sleeps. In the end he is able to write the story and has achieved an inner peace. With his newfound tranquillity, he asks the madam to make him some tea, but instead of the sleeping powder, he wants her to add a poison to it. Both the novelist and the madam drink the tea and slowly drift off to sleep.
M. Butterfly, 2017 Broadway Revival Version by
When M. Butterfly premiered in 1988, its remarkable story of international espionage and personal betrayal solidified its status as a modern classic. Based on the real-life affair between a French diplomat and a mysterious Chinese opera singer, it blurred the boundaries between male and female, East and West. For the 2017 Broadway Revival Version, Hwang has incorporated new material inspired by details of the relationship that have emerged since the play first seduced audiences. This intoxicating reimagining of M. BUTTERFLY examines the nature of love and the devastating cost of deceit.
The Sound of a Voice by
The scene is an isolated house in the woods where a beautiful young woman lives alone. When a young samurai appears she offers him food and shelter, and when he decides to stay on they eventually become lovers. But while fascinated by his benefactress, the samurai cannot shake a superstitious mistrust of her; for all her delicacy and beauty she is also able to perform wonders of cookery, horticulture and even the martial arts (much to his wounded pride). In the end it develops that the woman is suspected of being a witch and the samurai has come to seek glory by killing her. This he ultimately cannot, or will not, do, but neither can be accept her superiority, and so he leaves—a fateful decision which, as it turns out, is made at terrible cost to both of them.
Trying to Find Chinatown by
Lost on his way to Chinatown, Benjamin asks Ronnie for directions. Ronnie, playing his violin on the street for money, is offended that just because he looks like an Asian he automatically knows where Chinatown is. Caucasian looking, Benjamin was adopted by an Asian-American family at birth. He revels in his heritage and is looking for the house where his father was born. Ronnie, on the other hand, throws himself into all things American and finds it hard to sympathize with Benjamin who, when he finds his father’s house, is filled with a special elation.
Durango by
Photo by Sara Krulwich, 2006 Off-Broadway Production
To the outside world, the Lee boys look perfect: Isaac is on track to be a doctor, and his younger brother, Jimmy, is a champion swimmer. But when their widowed father, Boo-Seng, decides to take them on a road trip to Durango, Colorado, the carefully constructed facades of all three begin to crack. As they near their destination, tempers flare, old wounds reopen, and secrets are revealed. Durango is the story of a man who sacrificed everything—a home, a country—for the American Dream, and whose sons must now grapple with the consequences of that choice.
Tea by
Four women come together to clean the house of a fifth after her tragic suicide upsets the balance of life in their small Japanese immigrant community in the middle of the Kansas heartland. The spirit of the dead woman returns as a ghostly ringmaster to force the women to come to terms with the disquieting tension of their lives and find common ground so that she can escape from the limbo between life and death, and move on to the next world in peace—and indeed carve a pathway for their future passage. Set in Junction City, Kansas, 1968; and netherworlds.
Animals Out of Paper by
When a world-renowned origami artist opens her studio to a teenage prodigy and his school teacher, she discovers that life and love can’t be arranged neatly in this drama about finding the perfect fold.
Letters of Suresh by
Letters of Suresh reveals intimate mysteries through a series of letters between strangers, friends, daughters, and lovers—many with little in common but a hunger for human connection. Sending their hopes and dreams across oceans and years, they seek peace in one another, while some dream of a city once consumed by the scourge of war. Letters of Suresh is a companion play to Animals Out of Paper.
Included in Broadway Book Club’s College Theatre Pack
The Chinese Lady by
Photo by Carol Rosegg, 2018 Ma-Yi Theater Company Production
Afong Moy is fourteen years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, The Chinese Lady is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.
Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery by
In 1967, Berkeley grad student Frank Chan and his artist-activist girlfriend Kathy Ching are staging a revolution. Amid the backdrop of ongoing war in Vietnam and a peak in the Civil Rights movement, they devise a wild, impulsive theatrical trip through the history of Asians in America, from the ancestral railways of their forebears to the shameful legacy of Charlie Chan stereotypes, all in pursuit of establishing a brand new political identity they’ve decided to call “Asian America.” Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery is a harmless sing-song orientalist minstrel show that ends in a grotesque carnival of murder!!!
Usual Girls by
Kyeoung has spent her entire life negotiating the double standards imposed on her as an Asian American woman. Bullied by boys in childhood, ostracized by girls as a teen, and gas-lit by men as an adult, her experiences with sexuality grow more and more challenging. As we trace Kyeoung from the insecurity of puberty to the disenchantment of her adult life, USUAL GIRLS chronicles the wonder, pain, and complexity of growing up female.
Christmas in Hanoi by
Winnie Ganley and her family are traveling to Vietnam, her late mother’s birth country, during Christmas. Her Irish-American father is drinking too much, her Vietnamese grandfather is coming to believe his grandchildren are too assimilated, and her brother is seeing ghosts. As Winnie tries to uncover the real reason her father and grandfather have decided to make the trip, she—and the rest of her family—try to make peace with the past, with each other, and with themselves.
Guards at the Taj by
In 1648 India, two Imperial Guards watch from their post as the sun rises for the first time on the newly-completed Taj Mahal—an event that shakes their respective worlds. When they are ordered to perform an unthinkable task, the aftermath forces them to question the concepts of friendship, beauty, and duty, and changes them forever.
The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by
Jennifer is just an average girl who re-engineers obsolete missile components for the U.S. Army from her bedroom. When she decides to meet her birth mother in China, she uses her technological genius to devise a new form of human contact. Rolin Jones’ irreverent “techno-comedy” chronicles one brilliant woman’s quest to determine her heritage and face her fears with the help of a Mormon missionary, a pizza delivery guy, and her astounding creation called Jenny Chow.
Playscripts
In a Grove: Four Japanese Ghost Stories by Eric Coble
Obosan, a traditional Japanese priest, steps forward from the darkness. He explains that where we now see a grove of trees, bushes, and grassy hills, was once the village of Kogisu — and Obosan was once the village priest. Where did all the people go? What happened to the homes and shops and pathways? Obosan promises to answer all of these questions in four tales as he takes us back in time hundreds of years to watch the supernatural history — and ultimate destruction — of an entire village.
