The lounge at CitizenM Hotel, Manhattan. 7pm, Tuesday. Timothy Huang and David Henry Hwang sit in red swivel lounge chairs, cocktails in hand, chatting inaudibly. A Chinese Woman, 40s, enters.
CHINESE WOMAN
Excuse me… are you renowned playwright David Henry Hwang?
DAVID
Uhhh, yes! I am!
CHINESE WOMAN
I knew it!
Calls to her offstage friend
It’s him!! I told you! This is David Henry Hwang!
Back to David
We saw your last production of M. Butterfly. It was so gorgeous!
DAVID
Gracious and humbled.
Oh thank you! Thank you so much.
CHINESE WOMAN
I have been a fan for a very long time. In fact, I saw you speak at the Arts Alliance a few years ago it was amazing…
She shuffles through her purse for her phone.
Do you think we could…
She mimics a selfie.
DAVID
Oh! Yes of course!
Seeing how short her arms are, Timothy offers assistance.
TIMOTHY
Would you like me to…?
He gestures, snapping a photo. The Chinese Woman notices Timothy for the first time.
CHINESE WOMAN
Oh! Yes please! Thanks so much!
David and the Chinese Woman smile naturally and are immediately radiant. In fact, they draw in so much light, the flash does not even need to go off. Timothy snaps the flashless photo with a combination of admiration and unreasonable envy.
TIMOTHY
Gorgeous!
CHINESE WOMAN
Thank you! Uh…
She looks down at his shoes.
Who are you?
TIMOTHY
Who me? Oh, I’m... uh… I’m-
DAVID
This is Timothy Huang. He’s a composer, playwright, and songwriter. In fact we’re working on a project together right now.
CHINESE WOMAN
Oh! Is he your… are you related?… You’re not related.
Timothy laughs uncomfortably.
TIMOTHY
Ha! No, we’re… I mean, he is kind of like a brother from another mother. But no. No relation.
All three stare at Timothy’s shoes now. A long uncomfortable pause.
CHINESE WOMAN
Okay. Well, thanks again!
DAVID
Thank you, bye!
Chinese Woman exits. Timothy and David sit back down.
DAVID
Sorry, that never happens to me.
TIMOTHY
Lies.
DAVID
No, really.
TIMOTHY
David. This isn’t even the first time I’ve seen it happen to you.
DAVID
Really?
TIMOTHY
Yeah. Also, sometimes people hear my name incorrectly and think I’m you. They ask me what it’s like to be nominated for two Tonys.
DAVID
They do not.
TIMOTHY
They do. I tell them not as great as being nominated for three.
DAVID
You do not.
TIMOTHY
No, I do not. But I think it. Because it was three and they should recognize!
DAVID
Tim.
TIMOTHY
David. You have endorsed me countless times. You have granted me interviews. You have helped proliferate my work. You have even played violin for me on that one video. And I don’t mind telling you I have benefitted wildly from these things. Would you like to tell me why you did them for me?
DAVID
Reluctantly.
Because I’m a rockstar?
TIMOTHY
BECAUSE YOU’RE A FRIGGIN ROCKSTAR!! And I for one embrace anyone else who recognizes it. I suggest you do the same.
DAVID
Sorry. It’s just that… It's that whole Chinese humility thing.
TIMOTHY
Oh, I know about that Chinese humility thing. And our ancestors would be proud. …of your modesty, I mean. For the Tony noms, they’re definitely asking “why not four?” but I digress. You are a rockstar. And it’s okay to own it because I see you. I see you, that lady sees you, a lotta people see you. I’m getting the next round, what’re you having?
DAVID
A crisis of conscience?
TIMOTHY
Two lychee martinis it is.
Scene.
--
Not that you asked, but this interaction really happened. And it got me thinking about identity and self-perception, topics that David Henry Hwang’s deftly woven mockumentary Yellow Face grapples with. After seeing the original off-Broadway production of Yellow Face at the Public Theater in 2007, I went straight home and sent David an email. No text, just an mp3 of continuous applause. Because it too was so full of light it didn’t need any flash.
At the time, writing himself into his work as a named character wasn’t yet a tool David Henry Hwang would employ. And it occurred to me afterward that either the story of Yellow Face was wholly true and he was calling himself a type of Benedict Arnold, or a complete fabrication that I devoured wholesale because I needed to believe it was true. It was a huge mic drop and the first time I’d seen in real time his once-in-a-generation intellect which everyone so unilaterally revered.
I testify to this because it’s impossible to separate the playwright from the play when (as mentioned above) he’s written himself into the narrative as the central character (played here by Daniel Dae Kim). I couldn’t divorce the two anymore than I could separate the play’s title, “Yellow Face” from the harmful practice that title represents, “yellowface” aka the dicey and discussion-worthy practice of asking a non-Asian actor to pretend to be Asian in a role when probably the better choice would have been just casting an Asian. Yellow Face the play is simultaneously about: a) David Henry Hwang (whose character simply goes by the initials DHH), b) a play called Face Value which David Henry Hwang actually wrote in 1993, and c) the ensuing chaos that comes when DHH (the character) mistakes a white actor named Marcus (Ryan Eggold) for Asian and casts Marcus in Face Value as a Chinese man.
If that gives you a little bit of a giddy, meta-theatrical buzz, we are the same. Yellow Face is a fall-out-of-your-chair-hilarious, tear-off-your-armrest-in-frustration, blow-smoke-out-your-ears-from-over-analysis meta masterpiece with absolutely stellar performances by the aforementioned Kim and Eggold,Kevin Del Aguila, Francis Jue, Marinda Anderson, Greg Keller and Shannon Tyo.
It’s also an ouroboros of self-examination, self-dissection and self-acknowledgement. And in trademark David Henry Hwang style, the narrative itself is merely a conduit to serve up a deeper, darker, far more sinister notion that we don’t know is there until one key scene removes the scale from our collective eyes. If you’ve seen or read his previous works like Chinglish and Soft Power you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, allow me to enumerate a few things about DHH (the character) that David Henry Hwang (the playwright) would have us believe are real: The DHH of Yellow Face exclusively rents Asian porn while he’s on the road workshopping a show. He doesn’t believe anyone would recognize him and is measurably uncomfortable when someone does. He simultaneously loves his father and is indifferent to his father’s life’s work. He’ll do pretty much anything for a paycheck though, including serving on the board of a bank. He is very comfortable being the arbiter of what makes something “Asian.” So comfortable even, that he would go to tremendous lengths to preserve this perception, however misguided it might be. He is also probably the least qualified person for this appointment.
No doubt you’ve noticed that’s a far cry from the David of the above scene. Surely we’ve all done this exercise before: “Who is real? Who is fake? Will the real David Henry Hwang please stand up?” I mean, I know who my humble, generous, Lychee martini-loving guy is, but you weren’t there. I could be making it all up. The conclusion you have no choice to draw then, is that the truth probably falls somewhere in between the latter and the former. Great. And yet, the play posits, there are folks out there who are so uncomfortable with nuance, so entrenched in their experience that when DHH (the character) does anything uncharacteristic of their perception… they kind of go bonkers? “Your actions do not fit my expectations” they say in a multitude of ways “so change your behavior or I’ll take you off the board.”
What makes Yellow Face noteworthy to me then, is how deftly it asserts that while these forces are real, an anti-venom exists to mollify them. There’s a measurable way through. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t for the faint of heart and I won’t tell you exactly how it manifests itself. But I will say that at the end of the day the truth can only be revealed once it is divorced from the facts and if that gives you a little bit of a giddy buzz, we are the same.
--
Yellow Face is currently running on Broadway at the Todd Haimes Theatre.
