The basic facts about playwright David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face,” which recently opened at Shotgun Players: It premiered in 2007, won an Obie Award for Playwriting and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. On Broadway in 2024, it is the presumed favorite to win “Best Play Revival” at the Tony Awards on June 8.
Basic facts about the 33-year-old Shotgun Players: With founder-artistic director Patrick Dooley at the head, Shotgun is one of the most politically and socially conscious theaters around and consistently stages excellent productions of contemporary plays and world premieres. Its production of Leah Nanako Winkler’s “Thirty-Six” won last year’s local Glickman Award for new work.
That’s why it’s so surprising that the company’s “Yellow Face” falls flat on its, ahem, face.
It’s hard to understand, from this production, which features a cast of six, what exactly went wrong.
Hwang’s two-act comedy (with teeth) begins in the early 1990s, going back to the uproar over white British actor Jonathan Pryce being cast as the Engineer in “Miss Saigon,” first in London, then in the Broadway production. That show, which followed Hwang’s own “M. Butterfly” on Broadway in 1988, caused quite a furor at the time in the theater community, pitting earlier concepts of color-blind casting against issues of identity politics and racial misrepresentation.
Hwang took those issues and ran with them for “Yellow Face,” creating as the central character an avatar of himself (played by Ben Chau-Chiu) and putting that quasi-fictional DHH in cahoots and later in conflict with a white actor, Marcus (William Brosnahan), whom he casts as an Asian character in a play called “Face Value,” seeming to convince himself, the actor and audiences that Marcus, although he “looks” white, actually is not.
The fictionalized Hwang is also in off-and-on conflict with his immigrant, banker father (Joseph Alvarado); and with an inquisitive newspaper reporter (Alan Coyne); and even with an ex-girlfriend (Chloe Wong) who is now dating Marcus, thinking he’s Asian.
During two acts, with the most interesting nuances of Hwang’s complex explorations of anti-Asian racism and social expectations in Act 2, Hwang doesn’t hesitate to reveal this version of himself, this alter-ego, to be at times a complete idiot, at other times an understandably insecure and self-serving artist.
There’s lots here that feels relevant now, almost 20 years since “Yellow Face” first opened and even longer since the 1990s events of the play, including America’s relationship with China.
But on opening night, the actors seemed under-rehearsed (at times some fumbled for lines), or perhaps misdirected by Daniel J. Eslick: In playing multiple roles–indicated merely by a different accent or vocal tone, a hat or eyeglasses, or a suggestion of a costume change—most failed to alter their physicality. The result: a confusing mish-mosh of frenetic, cartoony activity. In general, whether going for comedy or heartfelt emotion—rage or grief—the actors seemed to be skimming the surface.
It doesn’t help that in Clint Sumalpong’s equally confusing and crowded set design, newscasters appear in big glass cubes that are sometimes pushed around the stage by other actors to no apparent purpose. Or that the smaller, intriguing, mounted glass cases, which appear to contain little Asian-related figurines or dioramas, are hard to discern and remain a mystery.
Still, there’s much in DHH’s play to ponder and parse, despite the missteps.
Shotgun Players’ “Yellow Face” continues through June 14 at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets are $12 to $80 at shotgunplayers.org.
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