Reviews

AISLE SAY New York

GOLDEN CHILD

By David Henry Hwang
Directed by James Lapine
Papp/Public: Newman
425 Lafayette Street / (212) 260-2400

Reviewed by David Spencer

"Golden Child" is neither as good nor as compelling a play as its author's previous "M. Butterfly", but there are compensations in the fact that it is nonetheless absorbing, and that the issues are, arguably, hotter. In this one, the Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang examines cultural cross-pollination, the introduction of Christianity to Southeast China.

The play begins in present day Manhattan with a young man, Andrew (Stan Egi) recounting a recent visit to his very Christian, conversion-minded grandmother (Julyana Soelistyo); on the cab ride back to the airport, something jogs his memory, and he free associates to stories he has been told--and his impressions of those stories--about his grandmother as a young girl.

The play flashes back to her village and family in a Southeast China village (Fukien province), 1918. She is the daughter of Andrew's great-grandfather, Tieng-Bin (also Egi) and his first wife, traditionalist Siu-Yong (Tsai Chin). But scheming second wife Luan (Jodi Long) and younger, sexier, more innocent third wife Eling (Liana Pai) are on hand too. Tieng-Bin has been away for two years on business, but he has returned with an interest in Christianity, having befriended the missionary Reverend Baines (John Christopher Jones). The wives use their wiles to jockey for position in their husband's favor, but only the savviest among them recognize his new interest in Christianity as coin of the realm. The impact of the religion on their lives--indeed, on the structure and stability of their family--powers the story of the play. And, it is implied, their small tale represents the saga of a nation in microcosm. One interpretation anyway.

"Golden Child" does not have the hard edge and anger of the musical "Pacific Overtures" (possibly the most famous stage piece to explore similar "westernization" issues, specifically the changing of Japan following Commadore Perry's invasion in 1853); it is a gentler thing, more of a tone poem. There are characters in it who are angry, certainly, and there are momentous events--death plays a part--but its style is more sinuous, it presents its story without proselytizing. In a surprising way I won't spoil, it even flirts with the theatrical genre of "magic realism," allowing for a touch of the supernatural--which is as close as it comes to making an editorial statement. This one leaves the answers up to the viewer.

It tells a fairly interesting tale for the viewer to mull over too, with some unexpected intrigues and reversals. One of the best reversals comes with the introduction of the Reverend, and a fairly obvious theatrical device that, for all its simplicity, I've not known to be employed before: We adopt the playwright's conceit, that the family speak among themselves in Chinese, although what we are hearing, of course, is well-spoken, largely unaccented English. When the white man enters the enclave, Hwang has him speaking in slightly broken English. It takes but a few sentences for us to realize that this broken English represents his limited grasp of Chinese, to understand that, despite what we are hearing in real life, the stage reality is that English is not being spoken at all. It's a wonderful spin on the usual technique, and the way it insinuates itself into our consciousness rather than announcing itself is typical of the play's general approach as well.

Under the direction of James Lapine, the production is spare and streamlined, the performances clean and meticulously shaped, the physical attitudes seeming to be derived as much from representative artwork of the culture as by careful acting choices. (Especially notable is young Julyana Soelistyo, whose transformation from an old woman to a girl of twelve and back again is wholly convincing and genuinely awesome.)

I don't really have any quibbles with "Golden Child"; my only disappointment may be extremely personal. It's a much more low-key piece than you might expect, given the high octane of the creative team--and though you empathize with the characters and their desires, you're never really touched by them. I can't say it's a cold or intellectual piece--nothing could be further from the truth--but it never quite travels the full distance between the head and the heart.

Then again, that was my reaction there, in the theatre, in real time. But I still think about the play, its lyrical narrative, the gentle infusion of its themes into my post-theatre thoughts...and I find I can also make a convincing case for it as a piece that works its way through your system as slowly and caressingly as it unfolds on stage.

Who knows, in a week or two I may be wiping moisture from my eyes at the very thought of it...

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