Playing Asian: A Review of AATP’s “Yellow Face”Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, United States on 2016-05-12 00:37Z by Steven |
Playing Asian: A Review of AATP’s “Yellow Face”
Standford Arts Review
2016-05-05
“You don’t have to live as an Asian every day of your life.”
These words, spoken by the character David Henry Hwang (Newton Cheng) in Stanford’s Asian American Theater Project’s production of Hwang’s “unreliable memoir” Yellow Face, ring clear throughout the small, intimate space of the Elliott Program Center. Hwang has his back to the audience, head tilted upwards as he confronts the character of Marcus (Levi Jennings) over his self-proclaimed “choice” to be Asian– Siberian Jewish American, to be exact. Marcus stands upon a simple podium, lights beaming down on him like some sort of halo. In this moment, Marcus is playing savior, the beacon of whiteness coming to “save” the play’s Asian community, taking the qualities of color that benefit him while remaining free of the struggle that comes from racism. Everyone wants to be Asian, but no one actually wants to be Asian…
Read the entire review here.