“Yellowface” at Todd Haimes Theatre
Glenda Frank in New York
20 October 2024
Yellowface is a quasi-autobiographical work by David Henry Hwang produced by Roundabout Theatre Company. It is set within a universe of clashing values. Powerful forces move the two protagonists beyond their personal choices into contemporary national disputes. The production brings us the best of director Leigh Silverman (Chinglish, Golden Child, 2024 Tony nomination for Suffs) as the versatile supporting actors triple and quadruple-role their way through the stories of family, colleagues, and American headlines. The light parodic tone helps create a seamless merging of the serious with the farcical. In addition to contemporary relevance, humour, and human poignancy, Yellowface has what I miss in so many current plays, magnitude or a form of grandeur.
Photo credit: Joan Marcus.
The term “yellowface” (non-Asian performers depicting Asian characters) made headlines in 1991 when Jonathan Pryce (Caucasian) was cast in the leading role of The Engineer (Asian) in both the British and the American productions of Miss Saigon. The protest in America surfaced just before the proposed transfer of the musical to Broadway.
DHH (Daniel Dae Kim, The King and I), a stand-in for the playwright, is still revelling in his success with M. Butterfly, the first Broadway production of a play by an Asian-American playwright and winner of the 1988 Tony Award. Friends, especially B.D. Wong (who played Butterfly) ask him to join the Miss Saigon protest. David leaps in only to discover what it means to pit himself against the economics of the American theatre and the powerful Cameron Mackintosh. Equity, the actors’ union, first rules in favour of verisimilitude in casting and the show is cancelled, unleashing a storm of counter protest. Eventually Miss Saigon opens with Pryce as the Engineer. Hwang has recreated the era with delicate and detailed strokes. The shock (and life) of the play comes as the supporting actors (Kevin Del Aguila, Marinda Anderson, Greg Keller, and Shannon Tyo) glide between cultures and genders in their many brief roles, role assignments that question the importance of identity politics.
There is treatment of a play within the main play when DHH’s new play, Face Value, explores the Miss Saigon fracas. After a difficult search, DHH thinks he has found the perfect lead although there are questions. Marcus (the appealing Ryan Eggold, familiar to television audiences from The Blacklist and New Amsterdam) does not look Asian, but he auditions brilliantly and had played in a drama opposite Rodney Hatamiya, a well-known Asian performer. (While most of the other characters in the play are based on actual people, Marcus is a dramatic creation.)
Marcus is transported. He has his big break and at a local meeting of activists, he finds sympathy and a voice to protest the treatment of Asian-Americans. It’s comical, touching and maybe a little unbelievable. DHH, however, realizes Marcus (who has not lied), is Caucasian and he can’t fire him. So, to save face, he tells everyone the actor is a Siberian Jew (and Siberia is in Asia, right?) He advises the actor to change his name to Marcus G from Marcus G. Dahlman. Marcus takes the advice, lands the Yul Brynner role in The King and I, and DHH’s former girlfriend moves in with him.
Then the play slides into murkier but even more interesting waters with a congressional investigation of Chinese money laundering, including the bank founded by HYH, DHH’s father (Francis Jue). Jue gives a captivating, energetic performance as an immigrant from Shanghai, in love with all things American. He is an empathetic cartoon, constantly casting himself as his celebrity role models – Jimmy Stewart and Frank Sinatra – who shaped his vision of the country. His professional danger, which the community sees as racial profiling (“Chinagate”) is avoided when DHH and Marcus jointly fight back by making huge sacrifices. DHH returns to his life, but Marcus, rejected, feels lost. The play opens and closes with his description of a stay in a remote village in China where he earns acceptance.
Yellowface asks intriguing questions that are good to chew on. It premiered at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, in May 2007. Its UK premiere was at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, 2013. The play transferred to the Royal National Theatre on May 5, 2014.
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