Yellow Facewhich includes a successful revival run at the Roundabout's Haimes Theater today, is a semi-autobiographical play by David Henry Hwang. How is it semi-autobiographical? The main character, DHH, is a playwright trying to get David Henry Hwang's play from 1993 to come to fruition. Face Valuean infamous flop from the author of M. Butterflywhich made Hwang the first Asian American playwright to win the Tony Award for Best Play in 1988.
But Yellow Face it also touches on the United States government's fear of Chinese interference in the American election, and the accusations that have fallen on Chinese churches, Chinese scientists and Chinese businessmen, including David's father, Henry Yuan Hwang. If all this makes sense or currentthink about that Yellow Face was first produced almost 20 years ago, in 2007, first in Los Angeles then in New York at the Public Theatre.
“It's amazing,” said Francis Jue The viewer. Jue plays HHH, a character based on Henry Yuan Hwang, who debuted in Community. “David wrote Yellow Face It was 20 years ago when it happened, but it feels like today's game. We are still talking about the same questions. What do we believe America is? Who should be able to decide who we are? Why can't we decide for ourselves? I feel grateful to be doing this show right now because it feels like I'm not just sitting at home screaming at my TV. I can do his play and talk to people about how we are in this together.”
In the 90s, David Henry Hwang wrote Face Value to address issues of representation, after the uproar that erupted when he criticized the dismissal of Englishman Jonathan Pryce as an Asian Miss Saigon. One part of the Yellow Face it's the illusion of who will play with whom and the frustration DHH endures while playing Face Value (which folded shortly after its eighth preview). But the other part involves the crushing of HHH's immigrant dreams. The first part gets the laughs; the second part brings tears.
Henry Yuan Hwang started as a dry cleaner, turned right and became a successful businessman who founded the Far East National Bank. In the 1990s—amid government investigations into Chinese involvement in money laundering and campaign meddling—the US stripped the Far Eastern National Bank of its charter. Henry was a true blue believer in the American way of life; he saw himself as something of a James Stewart who did good to others. The government's humiliation of Chinese citizens was a bitter betrayal of his beliefs, and the threat of imprisonment only deepened his anger.
Love M. Butterfly, Yellow Face he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize when it was first presented in 2007. Francis Jue's performance as HHH in Community earned him an Obie Award and a Lucille Lortel Award. Now, 17 years later, he's on Broadway to win the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor. When you consider how well Jue fits the part, it's hard to imagine that he wasn't the first choice. But when Yellow Face premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, David had another actor in mind for the role of the father, Tzi Ma, an actor he grew up with and who had made many of his debuts at The Public. When Ma couldn't do workshops and study at Stanford before the LA gig, director Leigh Silverman brought Jue in but promised not to play the part—words he later ate when Tzi Ma couldn't come to do Community Service. .
“I was hoping to do it,” Jue admitted, “but it wasn't for me. I learned early that my job was not to have a role. It's for the role. It is working for the playwright, what the playwright wants to say, what the director wants to say—and this is a role that I enjoy very much because I have been given the opportunity to work on programs where I agree with what they say. “
The Bay Area native adds, “David and Leigh's genius in this show is that they say, 'We all make a fool of ourselves talking in circles about these issues when they're so simple. If David's father believes he could be Jimmy Stewart, why can't we all be seen as human beings with the same human potential—without the whole fog of seeing people based on where they come from, what class they are, what all genders are. is there Why is it so hard for us to just see that? We don't live in that ideal world yet. We don't live in a world where white people play nice with Asians.”
Jue worked hard to build a father-son relationship with Daniel Dae Kim, who plays DHH. “There was a time when we practiced, instead of talking to each other on the phone, we faced the audience,” Jue recalled. “We decided to practice and see each other. I remember clearly when I was practicing, I just looked at him and suddenly I was filled with pride and admiration for this man as if he was really my son.”
HHH is saved from prison but not from cancer, which seems like the investigation comes up empty. Jue does a very poor job of repeating the obit that David wrote for Henry. He then moves on to a foggy background, unsure of where to turn.
“It took a while to figure out what we wanted to say at that time, how it should happen,” Jue commented. “Leigh, in her beauty, gives us all—actors and creators alike—a chance to try things. You want to see everything. He says, 'Try this,' and we reach the same conclusions together.
“I think anyone who has a parent, anyone who has a child, will find something in this game. Although it starts out as this big farce, it gets a lot worse and a lot more political. It just boils down to this good relationship between a father and his son, what parents want from their children that they don't allow themselves, the responsibilities that children have as parents.”
If you were not lucky enough to see it Yellow The face on Broadway, don't give up. The final performance on November 24 will be taped on PBS. “I don't know when it will play, but they hope it will come out sometime in the spring,” said Jue. “I'm very happy that this show—this show—will have a large audience. In the next few years, I hope PBS will play it over and over again because it's a great reminder of the hopes we have for the country and the dreams we have for the best American values.”
