Yellow Face (TCG Edition)
by David Henry Hwang
On This Page
Description
"A new satire of multiculturalism, by one of America's leading playwrights"--About the play. "In this mock-documentary play, David Henry Hwang puts himself center stage, as he uses the controversy over color-blind casting for Miss Saigon and the racially motivated federal investigation of his own father to explore Asian identity and the ever-changing definition of what it is to be an American."--Print cover.Tags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Very interesting work. I found it very thought provoking, especially when it comes to thinking about how we attack P.C. morality, and how it can be a road blcok to critical thinking.
Another great play from DHH. Thought-provoking and not at all what I expected. Worth your time, if you care to spend it.
http://wp.me/pGVzJ-gt for the full scoop.
http://wp.me/pGVzJ-gt for the full scoop.
The Earlier Yellow Face*
Review of the Audible Studios audiobook (May 2, 2024) multicast adaptation of the original play (2007) and the playscript from Dramatists Play Service (February 13, 2009).
Playwright David Henry Hwang creates a fictionalized story about his unpublished play Face Value (1993) which closed on Broadway after only 8 preview performances without even an official opening. The fiction takes off from the real-life protests of Hwang and others to the casting of Caucasian actor Jonathan Pryce in the role of the half-Vietnamese bar owner "The Engineer" in the London and New York staging of the Miss Saigon (1989) musical.
Hwang then opens his own play "Face Value" but inadvertently casts a Caucasian named Marcus as his Asian show more lead (in reality BD Wong played the role) and then has to invent a supposed Asian background for the actor in order to not embarrass himself. The actor then goes on to play several prominent Asian roles in the theatre, culminating in the role of the King of Siam (Thailand) in The King and I.
Various farcical events pile on top of each other with Hwang's father being accused of laundering Communist Chinese money in his bank, the press eager to expose Marcus's deception and DHH (the playwright's proxy) scrambling to both save his father from prosecution and undo the false narrative he had created for Marcus.
The audiobook had a full cast of prominent film and TV actors and featured Daniel Dae Kim in the role of DHH and Jason Biggs in the role of Marcus. Several prominent figures and actors played themselves. Everyone did an excellent job in this comedy farce.
Footnote
* I am thinking of the recent novel Yellowface (2023) by R.F. Kuang.
Trivia and Link
There was a Direct to YouTube film adaptation of David Henry Huang's Yellow Face in 2 parts which premiered ten years ago in 2014 and which you can watch here (Part 1) and here (Part 2). show less
Review of the Audible Studios audiobook (May 2, 2024) multicast adaptation of the original play (2007) and the playscript from Dramatists Play Service (February 13, 2009).
Playwright David Henry Hwang creates a fictionalized story about his unpublished play Face Value (1993) which closed on Broadway after only 8 preview performances without even an official opening. The fiction takes off from the real-life protests of Hwang and others to the casting of Caucasian actor Jonathan Pryce in the role of the half-Vietnamese bar owner "The Engineer" in the London and New York staging of the Miss Saigon (1989) musical.
Hwang then opens his own play "Face Value" but inadvertently casts a Caucasian named Marcus as his Asian show more lead (in reality BD Wong played the role) and then has to invent a supposed Asian background for the actor in order to not embarrass himself. The actor then goes on to play several prominent Asian roles in the theatre, culminating in the role of the King of Siam (Thailand) in The King and I.
Various farcical events pile on top of each other with Hwang's father being accused of laundering Communist Chinese money in his bank, the press eager to expose Marcus's deception and DHH (the playwright's proxy) scrambling to both save his father from prosecution and undo the false narrative he had created for Marcus.
The audiobook had a full cast of prominent film and TV actors and featured Daniel Dae Kim in the role of DHH and Jason Biggs in the role of Marcus. Several prominent figures and actors played themselves. Everyone did an excellent job in this comedy farce.
Footnote
* I am thinking of the recent novel Yellowface (2023) by R.F. Kuang.
Trivia and Link
There was a Direct to YouTube film adaptation of David Henry Huang's Yellow Face in 2 parts which premiered ten years ago in 2014 and which you can watch here (Part 1) and here (Part 2). show less
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Every Non-Musical Play Nominated for a Tony Award
64 works; 3 members
Author Information
29+ Works 1,815 Members
The son of immigrant Chinese parents, Hwang attended Stanford University and the Yale Drama School and has been a director and a teacher of playwriting. FOB (1981), which stands for "Fresh off the boat,"' explores the conflicts between two Chinese Americans and a Chinese exchange student still steeped in the customs and beliefs of the old world. show more It won an Obie Award in 1981. The Dance and the Railroad (1982) concerns an artist and his fellow workers who stage a strike to protest the inhuman conditions suffered by Chinese railroad workers in the American West in the nineteenth century. M Butterfly (1988), about the relationship between an American man and a Chinese transvestite, won the Tony Award as best play of the year. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote, "David Hwang has an ear for Chinatown English, the language of childhood and the subconscious, the language of emotion, the language of home." (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Work Relationships
Is abridged in
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 97
- Popularity
- 333,397
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (4.07)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 2
