About David Henry Hwang and his play Yellow Face:
“A pungent play of ideas with a big heart. Yellow Face brings to the
national discussion about race a sense of humor a mile wide, an
even-handed treatment and a hopeful, healing vision of a world that
could be.”—Variety
“Charming, touching, and cunningly organized as
well as funny, [with] an Ibsenite reach and stature far beyond any
issues of Hwang’s self-image.”—The Village Voice
“It’s about our country, about public image, about face,” says David Henry Hwang
about his latest work, a mock documentary that puts Hwang himself
center stage as it explores both Asian identity as well as race in
America. The play begins with the 1990s controversy over color-blind
casting for Miss Saigon, before it spins into a comic fantasy, in
which the character DHH pens a play in protest and then unwittingly
casts a white actor as the Asian lead. Yellow Face also explores the
real-life investigation of Hwang’s father, the first Asian American
to own a federally chartered bank, and the espionage charges against
physicist Wen Ho Lee. Adroitly combining the light touch of comedy
with weighty political and emotional issues, “Hwang’s lively and
provocative cultural self-portrait lets nobody off the hook” (The New
York Times). David Henry Hwang is the author of the Tony
Award–winning M. Butterfly, a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize.
Other plays include Golden Child, FOB, The Dance and the Railroad,
and Family Devotions; his opera libretti include three works for
composer Philip Glass. He was appointed by President Clinton to the
President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities
See a reading on YouTube | Documentary, Asians in Film |
