Reviews for Yellow Face (Dec07)

It feels great to have "Yellow Face" at the Public Theater. David Henry Hwang had his first play, "FOB," introduced at Joseph Papp's creative cauldron in 1981, seven years before "M. Butterfly" won the Tony Award and catapulted Hwang into the most celebrated Asian-American playwright in the galaxy.

And "Yellow Face" - the smart and delightful and scary new quasi-mock-autobiographical docudrama that opened last night - expands assumptions about race into danger zones first opened by Papp's insistence on nontraditional casting and multicultural theater.

Where, you may well ask, has Hwang been since the days when he was out there asking questions about ethnic identity in his boundary-challenging plays? Was this really the same Hwang whose name has been attached to such flabby Disney extravaganzas as "Aida" and "Tarzan," who got lost in Hollywood while putting Asian flavor in network sitcoms, whose individual voice disappeared inside librettos for Philip Glass operas?

And, as he recounts now with such humorous clarity, what happened to this gifted writer after "Face Value" closed before it even opened on Broadway in 1993 - losing its entire $2 million investment?

Well. In "Yellow Face," an enormously nuanced and likable actor named Hoon Lee brings us up-to-date as DHH, a playwright called David, in an unpredictable story that touches all the known facts, many surprises and a few useful fictions.

Leigh Silverman ("Well") directs Lee and five other actors on a simple raised platform in declamatory documentary style. Two are women, but they also portray some of the men without changing their voices or everyday clothes. At least two actors appear to be Asian-American - though, as the play deftly shows and tells us, it isn't so easy to identify races from faces anymore.

Hwang begins with recent Broadway history, the protests he helped lead in 1990 when English actor Jonathan Pryce was cast as the Eurasian pimp in "Miss Saigon." Cruel irony builds when Hwang mistakenly casts a white actor who looks like the young Chris Noth (Noah Bean) as an Asian-American in "Face Value."

The play begins with juicy backstage dramas, graced by what first appears to be the ancestral recriminations of haunting songs from an isolated Chinese province. But Hwang has much more in mind than theatrical catch-up and racial tourism.

Before long, he has widened his lens to global politics - most ominously, the demonization of China and Chinese-Americans in the '90s by a certain Sen. Fred Thompson. Hwang also deepens his focus to explore his relationship with his own father (the versatile Francis Jue), an immigrant who loved Frank Sinatra and built the largest Asian-owned American bank.

What happens to that American dream is woven with gossipy theater insights and intimations of political manipulation - a Chinese box of deceptive amusements and crushing beauty.

425 Lafayette St., Manhattan, through Dec. 23. Tickets: $50. Call 212-967-7555. Seen at Saturday afternoon preview.

Form follows function so closely that it trips itself up in “Yellow Face,” David Henry Hwang’s lively, messy and provocative cultural self-portrait of a play. This exploration of one man’s personal and social identity crisis, which opened last night at the Public Theater, suffers from its own artistic identity crisis.

Shifting from stand-up satire and one-liners to lacerating anguish and recriminations, this latest work from the Tony-winning author of “M. Butterfly” takes such a radical twist in tone that it leaves you with whiplash. It’s like a late-night phone call from a friend in crisis who begins by cracking wise and ends by sobbing convulsively.

There’s no doubt that it’s Mr. Hwang himself on the line, pouring his divided heart out. Lest you have any doubts on that subject, know that the protagonist of this woozy blend of fact and fantasy is named David Henry Hwang, the author of “M. Butterfly” and probing explorer of what it means to be Asian-American.

As written by Mr. Hwang and portrayed by Hoon Lee, D H H (as the character is identified in the program) is not a lovable guy, although he can be pretty funny. He’s a fame-craving, creatively constipated, ideologically conflicted and often cowardly fellow with a predilection for pornography and late-night drunken phone calls to women he barely knows.

To its credit, “Yellow Face” lets nobody off the hook. That includes superficial theater people (whom Mr. Hwang doesn’t hesitate to identify by their real names), earnest members of ethnic self-help groups, racist politicians and The New York Times. But it comes down hardest on David Henry Hwang.

The taking-off point of “Yellow Face,” directed in the perky style of a comedy revue by Leigh Silverman (“Well”), is a fabled clash of showbiz politics from 1990. That’s when Mr. Hwang and his friend the actor B. D. Wong (deliciously impersonated by Francis Jue), became the most famous public faces of the opposition to the use of Jonathan Pryce, an English actor, in the starring role of a Eurasian in the New York production of the megamusical “Miss Saigon.”

Mr. Hwang is ruthless in portraying how D H H ardently embraced and then dropped this cause célèbre. Asked to appear at a rally to put pressure on Actors Equity (which finally ruled in favor of allowing Mr. Pryce to appear), he responds, “But the artistic freedom thing — between you and me, I think this is starting to make us — look bad.”

As his hesitant delivery suggests, D H H’s motives are anything but clear-cut. The same ambiguity is evident in his subsequent decision to cast Marcus (played by Noah Bean as a generic actor in eternal search of a part) in the leading role of Mr. Hwang’s next play, the famous flop “Face Value.”

The role, you see, is Asian-American, and Marcus doesn’t look remotely Asian. It turns out that he isn’t, although D H H does some ardent rationalizing (and outright lying) to stretch ethnic definitions. Marcus takes this newly minted identity and runs with it, touring as the King in “The King and I” and speaking out about discrimination against Asian artists.

For its erratically entertaining first act, “Yellow Face” registers as a quick-sketch variation on the classic comedy of imposture, vaguely in the vein of Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges screen satires. The joke-driven dialogue sticks close to a glib surface more appropriate to a topical stand-up routine or Mr. Hwang’s books for the Disney musicals “Aida” and “Tarzan.”

But there’s an insider’s glee in impersonations of real denizens of the New York theater (from the producer Stuart Ostrow to the actress Jane Krakowski) by a protean cast, which also includes Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Kathryn A. Layng, Lucas Caleb Rooney and Anthony Torn. That these performers, whose names suggest their diverse ethnicities, embody all sorts of racial types adds an appropriately surreal spin to the play’s questions of cultural role-playing, in and out of the theater.

In the second act things turn increasingly grave. Mr. Hwang’s father, Henry Y. Hwang (here called H Y H), who has hitherto been portrayed (by Mr. Jue), as your standard-issue irritating cartoon parent, becomes a tragic figure. The C.E.O. of the Far East National Bank, he is the subject of a government investigation into money laundering for the Central Bank of China. His case is paralleled to that of Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese-American nuclear scientist who was imprisoned on suspicion of spying in the late 1990s.

In the play Henry Hwang’s chief persecutor is a reporter for The New York Times, played by Mr. Torn and identified as “Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel.” The capping moment in D H H’s realization that cultural identity is not just an abstract debate comes in a scene in which he is interviewed by this reporter, whose implicit racial stereotyping of Asians so appalls (and presumably enlightens) Mr. Hwang that he tells Name Withheld that he plans to make him a character in his next play.

But while the interview is chillingly played by Mr. Lee and Mr. Torn, it registers as just another jagged piece in a collage assembled in haste. Previously staged at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, “Yellow Face” feels less like a fully developed work than a scattershot, personal venting of painful emotions, still waiting to assume a polished form.

The play’s title, by the way, refers to the Asian equivalent of black face. It is Mr. Hwang’s reasonable contention that we are all imprisoned by masks. And a newly somber, sober D H H, who bears little resemblance to the comic-strip narcissist of the first act, informs us that he will now be searching for his real face. I look forward to seeing what he finds.

By David Henry Hwang; directed by Leigh Silverman; sets by David Korins; costumes by Myung Hee Cho; lighting by Donald Holder; sound by Darron L. West; production stage manager, Cole P. Bonenberger; general manager, Nicki Genovese; associate artistic director, Mandy Hackett; associate producer, Jenny Gersten; director of production, Ruth E. Sternberg. A co-production with the Center Theater Group, presented by the Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, artistic director; Mara Manus, executive director. At the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village; (212) 967-7555. Through Dec. 23. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.

WITH: Noah Bean (Marcus), Francis Jue (H Y H/others), Julienne Hanzelka Kim (Leah/others), Kathryn A. Layng (Jane/Miles/others), Hoon Lee (D H H), Lucas Caleb Rooney (Stuart/Rocco/others) and Anthony Torn (Announcer/Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel).

Through Dec. 23 at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. Tickets: $50; (212) 967-7555.

A fire alarm went off Saturday night during the intermission of "Yellow Face," which sent everyone in the theater rushing outside.

The same can't be said about some of the events in David Henry Hwang's autobiographical play, his first new full-length work in nearly a decade, which opened last night at the Public Theater.

That's precisely the author's intent in "Yellow Face," which blends well-documented occurrences with others that seem true but aren't. What Hwang is up to is exploring the blurry boundaries between truth and fiction as well as race and identity.

In a bold move, Hwang ("M. Butterfly") has written himself into the play, which begins with a quick rewind to how he became an Asian activist in 1990 by protesting the casting of Caucasian Jonathan Pryce as an Asian pimp in "Miss Saigon."

To cover, the author concocts an Asian-inflected back story for Marcus, who comes to love his fake persona and the fame it brings.

The two men's lives are irrevocably linked, even as the play becomes more serious. Hwang's banker father becomes front-page news when he is investigated for money-laundering for the Chinese government. Another subplot focuses on Asian-

In one of the play's best scenes, Hwang meets with the reporter covering his dad, a moment that smartly illustrates that journalism is never 100% objective.

Hwang wedges a lot into the play, and you're occasionally left wondering what's real and what's not. Leigh Silverman's strong direction makes it cohesive, and she's assembled an excellent cast.

As the author's alter ego, Hoon Lee marvelously conveys Hwang's humor, anger and anxiety. Noah Bean ("Damages") displays high- voltage charisma as Marcus.

The versatile ensemble crosses gender, age and ethnic lines in multiple roles, neatly underscoring the play's theme. Francis Jue is noteworthy as Hwang's lovable dad and the unfortunate Wen Ho Lee.

Throughout the play, Hwang emphasizes the Asian concept of "face" - how our face reveals who we truly are. Hwang's

Everybody probably knows what "blackface" means: it's the embarrassing, politically incorrect, once pervasive practice of having a white performer literally blacken his or her skin to play a (stereotyped) African or African American character. The look and style of blackface performance became so institutionalized that at one time even black performers had to literally apply blackface makeup if they were to be accepted on stage.

So "yellowface," by extension, is the same phenomenon applied to Asian Americans, and though it's just as embarrassing and politically incorrect as blackface, it is not entirely extinct. As recently as 1990, playwright David Henry Hwang found himself leading the charge against producer Cameron Mackintosh's decision to put Jonathan Pryce in the lead of the musical Miss Saigon, even though the role called for a Eurasian. Hwang and his supporters (which initially included Actors Equity) argued that after decades of white actors donning "yellowface" and thus denying Asian actors opportunities, it was morally and ethically wrong for a white actor to play "Asian" when so many competent Asian actors were available. Mackintosh countered that artistic freedom dictated that the most qualified person should be cast in the role, regardless of his/her ethnicity. (One suspects that, in this context, the "most qualified person" might be dictated by commercial as well as aesthetic principles, but let that go.)

It is this debate that underlies, and fuels, Hwang's newest play, the startling, exquisite, and ultimately profound Yellow Face. It is unabashedly autobiographical, and though it starts off resembling one of those almost-campy tell-all memoirs where axes get grinded and agendas get served, as Yellow Face unfolds it becomes clear that Hwang is really crafting something that's at once deeper, subtler, and more complex. In the end, this play is a journey through compromise, accommodation, and circumstance; through celebrity, controversy, and family. The David Henry Hwang of the last scene is a far different man from the Hwang of the first scene—a sadder but wiser one. The trick of this masterful script is that this transformation—its nature and the vehicle by which it is accomplished—is so sly and unexpected that I, for one, never saw it coming.

Which is why I'm reluctant to say too much about what happens in Yellow Face; like the flaming drinks that Auntie Mame serves the Upsons in the classic play and film, all of its ingredients are a secret. The Miss Saigon flap and its aftermath—which coincide chronologically with the failure of Hwang's follow-up to M. Butterfly, the play Face Value—are the focus of Act I of Yellow Face; while Hwang's relationship with his father, a successful California banker (he was, the play tells us, the first Asian American to be granted a federal bank charter), dominates the second half.

Lots of familiar figures find their way into this story, everybody from B.D. Wong (Tony winning star of M. Butterfly) to Mark Linn-Baker to Senator Fred Thompson. Nobody invoked here is safe from Hwang's incisive scrutiny, least of all the highly-placed American perpetrators of an attempted anti-Chinese witch hunt (ultimately thwarted only by 9/11); Yellow Face investigates briefly the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was wrongly accused of espionage, in its most harrowing section.

But Hwang and director Leigh Silverman keep the play from ever feeling polemical and indeed the entertainment quotient is exceedingly high. This is surely in part due to the fine cast, which is led by Hoon Lee, who is disarming and introspective as "DHH" (as the playwright lists himself in the character list), and Noah Bean, who is terrific as a charismatic young actor named Marcus who is supposed to play one of the leads in the misbegotten Face Value. Five other players take on dozens of roles among them, and they all do outstanding work. Francis Jue steals the show as Hwang's expansive, ultra-capitalist father and also as a boisterous Asian American student activist; and Kathryn A. Layng has at least one pricelessly golden moment when she stands center stage and announces, with great assurance, that she is Jane Krakowski. Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Lucas Caleb Rooney, and Anthony Torn complete the ensemble.

One thing you may wonder about is whether Hwang still thinks as he once did about "yellowface." The eclectic casting choices here provide some of the answer—perhaps we are all finally ready to move to a new place of equal opportunity in every sense that can be interpreted; I hope so. I'd like to think, too, that Hwang himself has taken the message of this play genuinely to heart: that the face he's wearing nowadays—writing smart, beautiful, touching plays like this one— is, finally, his own.

Questions? Email



	Yellow Face reviews Newsday (New York) Racial identity and other danger zones BYLINE: BY LINDA WINER. linda.winer@newsday.com It feels great to have "Yellow Face" at the Public Theater. David Henry Hwang had his first play, "FOB," introduced at Joseph Papp's creative cauldron in 1981, seven years before "M. Butterfly" won the Tony Award and catapulted Hwang into the most celebrated Asian-American playwright in the galaxy. And "Yellow Face" - the smart and delightful and scary new quasi-mock-autobiographical docudrama that opened last night - expands assumptions about race into danger zones first opened by Papp's insistence on nontraditional casting and multicultural theater. Where, you may well ask, has Hwang been since the days when he was out there asking questions about ethnic identity in his boundary-challenging plays? Was this really the same Hwang whose name has been attached to such flabby Disney extravaganzas as "Aida" and "Tarzan," who got lost in Hollywood while putting Asian flavor in network sitcoms, whose individual voice disappeared inside librettos for Philip Glass operas? And, as he recounts now with such humorous clarity, what happened to this gifted writer after "Face Value" closed before it even opened on Broadway in 1993 - losing its entire $2 million investment? Well. In "Yellow Face," an enormously nuanced and likable actor named Hoon Lee brings us up-to-date as DHH, a playwright called David, in an unpredictable story that touches all the known facts, many surprises and a few useful fictions. Leigh Silverman ("Well") directs Lee and five other actors on a simple raised platform in declamatory documentary style. Two are women, but they also portray some of the men without changing their voices or everyday clothes. At least two actors appear to be Asian-American - though, as the play deftly shows and tells us, it isn't so easy to identify races from faces anymore. Hwang begins with recent Broadway history, the protests he helped lead in 1990 when English actor Jonathan Pryce was cast as the Eurasian pimp in "Miss Saigon." Cruel irony builds when Hwang mistakenly casts a white actor who looks like the young Chris Noth (Noah Bean) as an Asian-American in "Face Value." The play begins with juicy backstage dramas, graced by what first appears to be the ancestral recriminations of haunting songs from an isolated Chinese province. But Hwang has much more in mind than theatrical catch-up and racial tourism. Before long, he has widened his lens to global politics - most ominously, the demonization of China and Chinese-Americans in the '90s by a certain Sen. Fred Thompson. Hwang also deepens his focus to explore his relationship with his own father (the versatile Francis Jue), an immigrant who loved Frank Sinatra and built the largest Asian-owned American bank. What happens to that American dream is woven with gossipy theater insights and intimations of political manipulation - a Chinese box of deceptive amusements and crushing beauty. YELLOW FACE. By David Henry Hwang, directed by Leigh Silverman. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., Manhattan, through Dec. 23. Tickets: $50. Call 212-967-7555. Seen at Saturday afternoon preview. MORE ON 'Yellow Face' A Satirical Spin on Stereotypes, at Home, Abroad and on Broadway By BEN BRANTLEY Published: December 11, 2007, NY Times Form follows function so closely that it trips itself up in “Yellow Face,” David Henry Hwang’s lively, messy and provocative cultural self-portrait of a play. This exploration of one man’s personal and social identity crisis, which opened last night at the Public Theater, suffers from its own artistic identity crisis. Shifting from stand-up satire and one-liners to lacerating anguish and recriminations, this latest work from the Tony-winning author of “M. Butterfly” takes such a radical twist in tone that it leaves you with whiplash. It’s like a late-night phone call from a friend in crisis who begins by cracking wise and ends by sobbing convulsively. There’s no doubt that it’s Mr. Hwang himself on the line, pouring his divided heart out. Lest you have any doubts on that subject, know that the protagonist of this woozy blend of fact and fantasy is named David Henry Hwang, the author of “M. Butterfly” and probing explorer of what it means to be Asian-American. As written by Mr. Hwang and portrayed by Hoon Lee, D H H (as the character is identified in the program) is not a lovable guy, although he can be pretty funny. He’s a fame-craving, creatively constipated, ideologically conflicted and often cowardly fellow with a predilection for pornography and late-night drunken phone calls to women he barely knows. To its credit, “Yellow Face” lets nobody off the hook. That includes superficial theater people (whom Mr. Hwang doesn’t hesitate to identify by their real names), earnest members of ethnic self-help groups, racist politicians and The New York Times. But it comes down hardest on David Henry Hwang. The taking-off point of “Yellow Face,” directed in the perky style of a comedy revue by Leigh Silverman (“Well”), is a fabled clash of showbiz politics from 1990. That’s when Mr. Hwang and his friend the actor B. D. Wong (deliciously impersonated by Francis Jue), became the most famous public faces of the opposition to the use of Jonathan Pryce, an English actor, in the starring role of a Eurasian in the New York production of the megamusical “Miss Saigon.” Mr. Hwang is ruthless in portraying how D H H ardently embraced and then dropped this cause célèbre. Asked to appear at a rally to put pressure on Actors Equity (which finally ruled in favor of allowing Mr. Pryce to appear), he responds, “But the artistic freedom thing — between you and me, I think this is starting to make us — look bad.” As his hesitant delivery suggests, D H H’s motives are anything but clear-cut. The same ambiguity is evident in his subsequent decision to cast Marcus (played by Noah Bean as a generic actor in eternal search of a part) in the leading role of Mr. Hwang’s next play, the famous flop “Face Value.” The role, you see, is Asian-American, and Marcus doesn’t look remotely Asian. It turns out that he isn’t, although D H H does some ardent rationalizing (and outright lying) to stretch ethnic definitions. Marcus takes this newly minted identity and runs with it, touring as the King in “The King and I” and speaking out about discrimination against Asian artists. For its erratically entertaining first act, “Yellow Face” registers as a quick-sketch variation on the classic comedy of imposture, vaguely in the vein of Ben Hecht and Preston Sturges screen satires. The joke-driven dialogue sticks close to a glib surface more appropriate to a topical stand-up routine or Mr. Hwang’s books for the Disney musicals “Aida” and “Tarzan.” But there’s an insider’s glee in impersonations of real denizens of the New York theater (from the producer Stuart Ostrow to the actress Jane Krakowski) by a protean cast, which also includes Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Kathryn A. Layng, Lucas Caleb Rooney and Anthony Torn. That these performers, whose names suggest their diverse ethnicities, embody all sorts of racial types adds an appropriately surreal spin to the play’s questions of cultural role-playing, in and out of the theater. In the second act things turn increasingly grave. Mr. Hwang’s father, Henry Y. Hwang (here called H Y H), who has hitherto been portrayed (by Mr. Jue), as your standard-issue irritating cartoon parent, becomes a tragic figure. The C.E.O. of the Far East National Bank, he is the subject of a government investigation into money laundering for the Central Bank of China. His case is paralleled to that of Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese-American nuclear scientist who was imprisoned on suspicion of spying in the late 1990s. In the play Henry Hwang’s chief persecutor is a reporter for The New York Times, played by Mr. Torn and identified as “Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel.” The capping moment in D H H’s realization that cultural identity is not just an abstract debate comes in a scene in which he is interviewed by this reporter, whose implicit racial stereotyping of Asians so appalls (and presumably enlightens) Mr. Hwang that he tells Name Withheld that he plans to make him a character in his next play. It was an uncomfortable scene for me, as someone who writes for The Times. But while the interview is chillingly played by Mr. Lee and Mr. Torn, it registers as just another jagged piece in a collage assembled in haste. Previously staged at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, “Yellow Face” feels less like a fully developed work than a scattershot, personal venting of painful emotions, still waiting to assume a polished form. The play’s title, by the way, refers to the Asian equivalent of black face. It is Mr. Hwang’s reasonable contention that we are all imprisoned by masks. And a newly somber, sober D H H, who bears little resemblance to the comic-strip narcissist of the first act, informs us that he will now be searching for his real face. I look forward to seeing what he finds. YELLOW FACE By David Henry Hwang; directed by Leigh Silverman; sets by David Korins; costumes by Myung Hee Cho; lighting by Donald Holder; sound by Darron L. West; production stage manager, Cole P. Bonenberger; general manager, Nicki Genovese; associate artistic director, Mandy Hackett; associate producer, Jenny Gersten; director of production, Ruth E. Sternberg. A co-production with the Center Theater Group, presented by the Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, artistic director; Mara Manus, executive director. At the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, at Astor Place, East Village; (212) 967-7555. Through Dec. 23. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. WITH: Noah Bean (Marcus), Francis Jue (H Y H/others), Julienne Hanzelka Kim (Leah/others), Kathryn A. Layng (Jane/Miles/others), Hoon Lee (D H H), Lucas Caleb Rooney (Stuart/Rocco/others) and Anthony Torn (Announcer/Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel). FACT AND FRICTION COME FACE TO ' FACE ' Daily News (New York) December 11, 2007 Tuesday BYLINE: BY JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ Through Dec. 23 at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. Tickets: $50; (212) 967-7555. A fire alarm went off Saturday night during the intermission of "Yellow Face," which sent everyone in the theater rushing outside. That really happened. The same can't be said about some of the events in David Henry Hwang's autobiographical play, his first new full-length work in nearly a decade, which opened last night at the Public Theater. That's precisely the author's intent in "Yellow Face," which blends well-documented occurrences with others that seem true but aren't. What Hwang is up to is exploring the blurry boundaries between truth and fiction as well as race and identity. In a bold move, Hwang ("M. Butterfly") has written himself into the play, which begins with a quick rewind to how he became an Asian activist in 1990 by protesting the casting of Caucasian Jonathan Pryce as an Asian pimp in "Miss Saigon." Fast-forward three years, when Hwang realizes to his horror that he's cast a Caucasian actor, Marcus (Noah Bean), as an Asian in his new play. To cover, the author concocts an Asian-inflected back story for Marcus, who comes to love his fake persona and the fame it brings. The two men's lives are irrevocably linked, even as the play becomes more serious. Hwang's banker father becomes front-page news when he is investigated for money-laundering for the Chinese government. Another subplot focuses on Asian- American scientist Wen Ho Lee, who is accused of passing secrets to China. In one of the play's best scenes, Hwang meets with the reporter covering his dad, a moment that smartly illustrates that journalism is never 100% objective. Hwang wedges a lot into the play, and you're occasionally left wondering what's real and what's not. Leigh Silverman's strong direction makes it cohesive, and she's assembled an excellent cast. As the author's alter ego, Hoon Lee marvelously conveys Hwang's humor, anger and anxiety. Noah Bean ("Damages") displays high- voltage charisma as Marcus. The versatile ensemble crosses gender, age and ethnic lines in multiple roles, neatly underscoring the play's theme. Francis Jue is noteworthy as Hwang's lovable dad and the unfortunate Wen Ho Lee. Throughout the play, Hwang emphasizes the Asian concept of "face" - how our face reveals who we truly are. Hwang's "Yellow Face" reveals an unequivocally insightful writer. nytheatre.com review Martin Denton · December 9, 2007 Everybody probably knows what "blackface" means: it's the embarrassing, politically incorrect, once pervasive practice of having a white performer literally blacken his or her skin to play a (stereotyped) African or African American character. The look and style of blackface performance became so institutionalized that at one time even black performers had to literally apply blackface makeup if they were to be accepted on stage. So "yellowface," by extension, is the same phenomenon applied to Asian Americans, and though it's just as embarrassing and politically incorrect as blackface, it is not entirely extinct. As recently as 1990, playwright David Henry Hwang found himself leading the charge against producer Cameron Mackintosh's decision to put Jonathan Pryce in the lead of the musical Miss Saigon, even though the role called for a Eurasian. Hwang and his supporters (which initially included Actors Equity) argued that after decades of white actors donning "yellowface" and thus denying Asian actors opportunities, it was morally and ethically wrong for a white actor to play "Asian" when so many competent Asian actors were available. Mackintosh countered that artistic freedom dictated that the most qualified person should be cast in the role, regardless of his/her ethnicity. (One suspects that, in this context, the "most qualified person" might be dictated by commercial as well as aesthetic principles, but let that go.) It is this debate that underlies, and fuels, Hwang's newest play, the startling, exquisite, and ultimately profound Yellow Face. It is unabashedly autobiographical, and though it starts off resembling one of those almost-campy tell-all memoirs where axes get grinded and agendas get served, as Yellow Face unfolds it becomes clear that Hwang is really crafting something that's at once deeper, subtler, and more complex. In the end, this play is a journey through compromise, accommodation, and circumstance; through celebrity, controversy, and family. The David Henry Hwang of the last scene is a far different man from the Hwang of the first scene—a sadder but wiser one. The trick of this masterful script is that this transformation—its nature and the vehicle by which it is accomplished—is so sly and unexpected that I, for one, never saw it coming. Which is why I'm reluctant to say too much about what happens in Yellow Face; like the flaming drinks that Auntie Mame serves the Upsons in the classic play and film, all of its ingredients are a secret. The Miss Saigon flap and its aftermath—which coincide chronologically with the failure of Hwang's follow-up to M. Butterfly, the play Face Value—are the focus of Act I of Yellow Face; while Hwang's relationship with his father, a successful California banker (he was, the play tells us, the first Asian American to be granted a federal bank charter), dominates the second half. Lots of familiar figures find their way into this story, everybody from B.D. Wong (Tony winning star of M. Butterfly) to Mark Linn-Baker to Senator Fred Thompson. Nobody invoked here is safe from Hwang's incisive scrutiny, least of all the highly-placed American perpetrators of an attempted anti-Chinese witch hunt (ultimately thwarted only by 9/11); Yellow Face investigates briefly the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was wrongly accused of espionage, in its most harrowing section. But Hwang and director Leigh Silverman keep the play from ever feeling polemical and indeed the entertainment quotient is exceedingly high. This is surely in part due to the fine cast, which is led by Hoon Lee, who is disarming and introspective as "DHH" (as the playwright lists himself in the character list), and Noah Bean, who is terrific as a charismatic young actor named Marcus who is supposed to play one of the leads in the misbegotten Face Value. Five other players take on dozens of roles among them, and they all do outstanding work. Francis Jue steals the show as Hwang's expansive, ultra-capitalist father and also as a boisterous Asian American student activist; and Kathryn A. Layng has at least one pricelessly golden moment when she stands center stage and announces, with great assurance, that she is Jane Krakowski. Julienne Hanzelka Kim, Lucas Caleb Rooney, and Anthony Torn complete the ensemble. One thing you may wonder about is whether Hwang still thinks as he once did about "yellowface." The eclectic casting choices here provide some of the answer—perhaps we are all finally ready to move to a new place of equal opportunity in every sense that can be interpreted; I hope so. I'd like to think, too, that Hwang himself has taken the message of this play genuinely to heart: that the face he's wearing nowadays—writing smart, beautiful, touching plays like this one— is, finally, his own. Home \| News \| Calendar \| Directory \| Plays \| Library/Storefront Copyright 2007, Roger W. Tang Questions? Email

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