The only Asian American ever to win the Tony for best play (M. Butterfly), David Henry Hwang has made a career out of dramatizing the issues of race, identity, and getting lost in translation.
“Theater can connect people from very different communities and show how we are linked together, how we as human beings deal with the same issues and problems in different ways,” [director Steve Scott] said. That’s when theater gets it right.
Silk Road boasts the local premiere of Hwang’s daring 2007 satire Yellow Face, which grew out of the playwright’s protest against casting white actors in Asian roles and features a heavily fictionalized protagonist named David Henry Hwang.
Yellow Face is the journey of the doppelganger character, my doppelganger “DHH,” and how he transforms from one who is actually interested in Asian-American things to someone who is interested in keeping up an image of being an Asian-American role model.
David Henry Hwang has finally found a home in Chicago. Make that three homes for three plays. The playwright’s work is seldom done here, but this summer marks a turnaround.
Chicago theater goers can become better acquainted with the wry humor of award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, this summer... Hwang offers audiences a double chance to see how circumstances can take strange, often humorous twists due to cultural preconceptions, misconceiptions and differences.
