Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 65 p.; 20 cm.

Summary

1. "The lines between truth and fiction blur with hilarious and moving results in David Henry Hwang's unreliable memoir. Asian-American playwright DHH, fresh off his Tony Award win for M. Butterfly, leads a protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon, condemning the practice as "yellowface." His position soon comes back to haunt him when he mistakes a Caucasian actor, Marcus G. Dahlman, for mixed-race, and casts him in the lead Asian role of his own Broadway-bound comedy, Face Value. When DHH discovers the truth of Marcus' ethnicity, he tries to conceal his blunder to protect his reputation as an Asian-American role model, by passing the actor off as a "Siberian Jew." Meanwhile, DHH's father, Henry Y. Hwang, an immigrant who loves the American Dream and Frank Sinatra, finds himself ensnared in the same web of late-1990's anti-Chinese paranoia that also leads to the "Donorgate" scandal and the arrest of Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. As he clings to his old multicultural rhetoric, this new racist witch hunt forces DHH to confront the complex and ever-changing role that "face" plays in American life today."--Publisher's web site.

Subject

1. Hwang, David Henry, 1957- -- Drama
2. Pryce, Jonathan -- Drama
3. Schönberg, Claude-Michel. -- Drama
4. Actors -- Drama
5. Actresses -- Drama
6. Asians -- Race identity -- Drama
7. Asian Americans -- Race identity -- Drama
8. Asian American actors -- Drama
9. Authorship -- Psychological aspects -- Drama
10. Dramatists -- Drama
11. Dramatists, American
12. Race relations -- Drama
13. Stereotypes (Social psychology) -- Drama
14. Theater -- Drama
15. Theater -- Casting -- Drama
16. Theater -- New York (State) -- New York

Genre/Form

1. Drama
2. Autobiographical drama
3. Satirical literature

Owning institution

1. Harvard Library

Processing action (note)

1. committed to retain