WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.890 DAVID HENRY HWANG: The basic story is that there's an Asian American playwright named DHH. 00:00:04.890 --> 00:00:06.640 ACTOR 1: The new play which Mr. Hwang describes as: 00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:09.220 ACTOR 2: A comedy of mistaken racial identity. 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:11.840 ACTOR 1: Was inspired by the fracas over the casting of 00:00:11.840 --> 00:00:15.430 Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in Miss Saigon. 00:00:15.430 --> 00:00:18.400 DAVID HENRY HWANG: That protest that I was actually involved in in 1990, 00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:20.615 and he subsequently, 00:00:20.615 --> 00:00:25.600 accidentally casts a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:29.380 FEMALE ACTOR: We are looking to cast this role with an Asian. 00:00:29.380 --> 00:00:33.010 DAVID HENRY HWANG: Mistakenly believing that that actor is part Asian. 00:00:33.010 --> 00:00:36.575 ACTOR 2: But I think Marcus should be the next John Long or Bedi Hwang. 00:00:36.575 --> 00:00:39.020 ACTOR 1: At least they both look Asian. [LAUGHTER] 00:00:39.020 --> 00:00:43.620 DAVID HENRY HWANG: Yellow face, as a term, 00:00:43.620 --> 00:00:48.090 refers to a White actor going on stage with makeup in order to portray an Asian. 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:52.410 The play takes the idea of yellow face and 00:00:52.410 --> 00:00:55.850 tries to look at its many different possible permutations. 00:00:55.850 --> 00:00:59.550 Not only what it means for a White person to play an Asian on stage, 00:00:59.550 --> 00:01:03.310 but what does it mean for a White person to play or pretend to be an Asian offstage? 00:01:03.310 --> 00:01:06.630 What does it mean for an Asian to be in yellow face? 00:01:06.630 --> 00:01:15.325 That is to really exploit and take as his or her prime identity the fact of ethnicity. 00:01:15.325 --> 00:01:19.050 DHH: After all, I was a respected figure in the community, 00:01:19.050 --> 00:01:22.750 the first Asian playwright to have a play produced on Broadway. 00:01:22.750 --> 00:01:28.110 I even appeared on national television with Lily Tomlin. 00:01:29.450 --> 00:01:32.510 DAVID HENRY HWANG: My entire adult life, 00:01:32.510 --> 00:01:37.250 I have been associated in some way with being Asian, 00:01:37.250 --> 00:01:39.130 being part of this community, 00:01:39.130 --> 00:01:42.590 being a role model, whatever that means. 00:01:42.800 --> 00:01:46.690 I've been in yellow face. 00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:53.990 FEMALE ACTOR: The 1988 Tony Award for best play goes to M. Butterfly. 00:01:56.030 --> 00:01:58.450 DAVID HENRY HWANG: Throughout the show, 00:01:58.450 --> 00:02:06.210 we see DHH as somebody who starts to lose his bearings about being an Asian American. 00:02:06.210 --> 00:02:08.515 DHH: Welcome to a new day in America. 00:02:08.515 --> 00:02:10.850 DAVID HENRY HWANG: At the beginning of the show, he has that identity, 00:02:10.850 --> 00:02:16.410 and then increasingly becomes confused about what it means to be Asian. 00:02:16.410 --> 00:02:23.630 To what extent do we as Asians play our ethnicity at certain times in our experience? 00:02:23.630 --> 00:02:26.490 When do we do that? Why do we choose to do that? 00:02:26.490 --> 00:02:32.655 Then also, can we choose our ethnicity in some sense? 00:02:32.655 --> 00:02:36.295 MARCUS: My background, it's so mixed up, it's hard to keep track. 00:02:36.295 --> 00:02:38.380 DHH: I can tell Asian when I see one. 00:02:38.380 --> 00:02:41.680 ACTOR 3: Marcus is 100% alright. 100% White. 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:45.600 DAVID HENRY HWANG: Can a White person who is very involved 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:49.745 in Asian things and Asian American things be in some sense Asian American? 00:02:49.745 --> 00:02:52.440 FEMALE ACTOR: In this day and age, a Caucasian playing the Chinese? 00:02:52.440 --> 00:02:54.345 DAVID HENRY HWANG: [OVERLAPPING] I think at this point, 00:02:54.345 --> 00:02:59.895 many years have gone by since the beginning of the identity politics movements, 00:02:59.895 --> 00:03:05.060 since multiculturalism was first put out there as a concept. 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:10.645 The society has continued to move forward in many ways. 00:03:10.645 --> 00:03:13.200 I think that there are things that were 00:03:13.200 --> 00:03:16.180 great about multiculturalism and great about identity politics, 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:21.935 but there are also things that were silly and contradictory and had limitations. 00:03:21.935 --> 00:03:25.380 MARCUS: My father is Jewish. [LAUGHTER] Do you know there are 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:29.760 some people who believe that the last tribe of Israel landed up in China. 00:03:29.760 --> 00:03:32.930 DAVID HENRY HWANG: [LAUGHTER] I think that's really the contradiction 00:03:32.930 --> 00:03:36.950 that we need to wrap our minds around at this point in history. 00:03:36.950 --> 00:03:40.070 That yes, on the one hand, race is meaningless, 00:03:40.070 --> 00:03:41.600 it's a construct, 00:03:41.600 --> 00:03:43.870 we need to get to a post-race society. 00:03:43.870 --> 00:03:48.135 On the other hand, racist things still happen now and then and we have to deal with them. 00:03:48.135 --> 00:03:49.610 DHH: It's a new world out there. 00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:51.870 The demographics of this country are changing so 00:03:51.870 --> 00:03:54.170 fast and sometimes we think it's only White people who got to wake up 00:03:54.170 --> 00:03:56.465 but we've got to start thinking differently too. 00:03:56.465 --> 00:04:01.150 DAVID HENRY HWANG: I think the fact that the play questions in some ways, 00:04:01.150 --> 00:04:04.160 the notion of being Asian American and the importance of that, 00:04:04.160 --> 00:04:07.950 is where most of us are right now, 00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:10.650 that we recognize that we are Asian American 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:13.970 and that we have a certain appreciation for our heritage and all that, 00:04:13.970 --> 00:04:21.350 and that doesn't completely define us as people, 00:04:21.350 --> 00:04:25.670 that your ethnic identity does not explain who you are. 00:04:25.670 --> 00:04:30.585 If anything, it's one piece in a complicated picture of who we are. 00:04:30.585 --> 00:04:32.050 But it's not the answer, 00:04:32.050 --> 00:04:35.630 the way that it may be felt more in the '70s and '80s. 00:04:35.630 --> 00:04:37.850 I think one of the things that the play is saying is, 00:04:37.850 --> 00:04:39.660 it's okay to be confused. 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:42.570 My character in the play is confused. 00:04:42.570 --> 00:04:44.250 My character makes mistakes. 00:04:44.250 --> 00:04:47.600 My character does more stupid things than anybody else in the show. 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:53.570 Hopefully, that allows maybe audience members to relax a little on the subject of race 00:04:53.570 --> 00:04:56.390 in the context of watching the show and perhaps 00:04:56.390 --> 00:04:59.865 open up to thinking about some of these ideas in different ways. 00:04:59.865 --> 00:05:08.190 DHH 2: Now, I am finally living my real life being in America.