Po Boy Tango at East West Players and the fight against archetypal humans. Tuesday, October 13, 2009 As promised I am giving fore-warning to everyone who might be in danger of seeing one of my plays. So, I am pleased to announce that Po Boy Tango has officially begun rehearsals for it's West Coast premiere at East West Players. The play is directed by Oahn Nguyen and will star CeCe Antoinette, Dennis Dun and Jeanne Sakata. Previews run from November 5 - 8; Opening Night is November 11 and the show will run until December 6. If you are wondering if Po Boy Tango is for you, check out Act One here. To find out more about East West Players's production of Po Boy Tango, click on the link here. This production at East West Players is a very big deal for me. When I started dreaming about becoming a playwright and began to follow the careers of Chay Yew, Philip Kan Gotanda, David Henry Hwang and the like, I put a production at East West Players on my list of milestones to define a career as a meaningful Asian American theater artist. I am humbled by East West Players's mission and am humbled that Artistic Director Tim Dang has decided to put my work on his stage ... with real food! So, I'm very excited these days, and I'm sending the artistic team out in Los Angeles all my love. Given that I am about to be produced at one of the most venerable Asian American theaters in the country, I thought that this would probably be a good moment to begin the on-going discussion that this blog intends to have about the American Theater from a Chinese playwright's perspective. For an overview of some of the current trends in the Asian American Theater, check out this article by Mark Blankenship, a classmate of mine from Yale and the driving force behind the fresh and innovative website/blog, The Critical Condition . Mark is a star in the new school of aesthetic critique and I think you'll be hearing a lot from him in the years to come. For a comprehensive history of Asian immigration and social issues, I've found the site Asian-Nation to be very helpful. [Note: Please be aware, the Asian-Nation site is very rich in content and I certainly haven't thoroughly vetted the entire site. Please, use this site and its content with the caution with which you use other reference sites on the web.] With that groundwork laid, I'd like to explore the difficulties in getting Asian audiences into the theater. A few years back, one of my professors was working on a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Flower Drum Song. He and his cohorts conducted market research about the theater-going habits of Asians and they found that ... (drum roll) ... Asian don't go to the theater! The book for Flower Drum Song was re-written by David Henry Hwang (genius); it was based on a novel by C. Y. Lee (a Chinese American) and it starred Lea Salonga (a bonafide musical theater super-star). But, the production could not count on filling the seats with a significant proportions of the hundreds of thousands of Asians living in the New York Metropolitan area. What was going on? [Full disclosure: I didn't go see the musical, but I also wasn't living in the New York Metropolitan area at the time.] Well, there are a number of things going on here that play into the dynamics of all the Asian American productions that are struggling to find space on our stages. Sure, you can say that Asian American demographics are misleading because Asian American communities are so diverse. Sure, you can also say that Asians today aren't motivated to see a musical written by white people about the Asian American experience in the 1960's. But, I don't think it can be argued that Asian Americans have, thus far, failed to impose their unique experience on the greater landscape of the general American experience. While I applaud the Asian theaters in the country for their important work, I am concerned by an Asian American audience that neglects to vote with its feet and demand Asian American stories on American stages and screens. At best this suggests an unwillingness to engage in society at large, opting instead for more familiar intra-group experiences. At worst, it concedes that Caucasians are archetypal human beings. Granted, it's incredibly difficult to fight this. When I was living in Taipei, virtually all of the advertisements in the subway featured Caucasian models. The Japanese import American movie stars to hawk their wares. If the Asian media treats Asians as second-class citizens in Asia, what chance do Asians in America have of asserting their own unique voices?! This should be an important issue for all of us, moving forward, because the Asian American dinner-table, regardless of demographics, is going to be one of the most important battlegrounds for ideas in America. In reading the op-eds and hearing the dogmatic timbre of contemporary political discourse, it seems clear that the conversation has become so polarized that we find ourselves intellectually grid-locked. We need alternative perspectives. Asian Americans are so important at this moment in history because their story embodies, practically, both schools of thought that are wrenching the nation apart. Modern Liberalism owes much to John Rawl's contention that ethical systems, under a veil of ignorance, must pay the most attention to the worst off in society. Modern Conservatism owes much to Robert Nozick's contention that individual rights should be paramount in ethical systems. Asian Americans are uniquely tapped in to both systems. With deep ties to the immigrant community, Asian Americans often have access to the worst off in society. (Don't be surprised if your favorite waiter at the Chinese restaurant you frequent is an indentured servant.) At the same time, the Asian American immigrant story embodies the myth of rugged individualism, success and bravery that is so deeply woven into the story that Americans as a whole like to tell about themselves. Look at the Asian American dinner table and see, seated, people who struggle at the lowest tiers of American society while also chasing the most vibrant American dreams. These dinner tables are multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-generational and deeply American. As Asian American artists, it's important to remember our places at these tables and to relay what is whispered there (more likely shouted) to the ears of a greater American audience. As Asian Americans, we must remember the important place that we hold in this country and its ever-unfolding story. As Americans we must strive to listen. end of scene