David Henry Hwang's 'Yellow Face' Debuts (5/16) on PBS' 'Great Performances'

[Wayman_Wong]

Posted: 5/16/25 at 1:45am

If you missed David Henry Hwang's ''Yellow Face'' last fall at the Roundabout, PBS' ''Great Performances'' filmed it. It stars Daniel Dae Kim, who plays a comic version of Hwang himself, as an Asian-American playwright who mistakenly hires a Caucasian actor to play an Asian role. The irony, of course, is that Hwang had protested, in 1990, the hiring of a Caucasian actor (Jonathan Pryce) to play the Eurasian Engineer in ''Miss Saigon.'' Comic chaos ensues. ''Yellow Face'' won a 2008 Obie and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The Roundabout staging is up for three Tonys: Best Play Revival; Leading Actor in a Play (Kim is the first East/Southeast Asian to be nominated in this category in the Tonys' 78-year history), and Featured Actor (Francis Jue).

Time flies. This July 11 will mark the 35th anniversary of my breaking the story about the casting controversy over ''Miss Saigon'' in the New York Daily News. Last fall, I wrote a piece for Talkin' Broadway called ''My Twisty History With 'Miss Saigon' and 'Yellow Face.''' (Linked below.) After watching ''Yellow Face'' on PBS, you can read about my run-in with Pryce and all the real-life drama that inspired Hwang's comedy. (And at one point, I was even IN the play!)

https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/rialto/past/2024/yellowface.html

Updated On: 5/16/25 at 01:45 AM

[bear88]

Posted: 5/16/25 at 2:16am

Your role in that saga is fascinating. I’m looking forward to seeing the play.

[bear88]

Posted: 5/20/25 at 3:58am

That was a terrific play and a wonderful television production. Daniel Dae Kim walks the tricky line between the ridiculous and the somber with aplomb, holding the play together. Francis Jue is always great, but the centerpiece of the play - taking it from clever to excellent - is the pivotal confrontation between Kim as Hwang and Greg Keller as the thinly disguised New York Times reporter. So much of that scene rang true, and the dialogue sparkled. There were a lot of smart choices made in the direction too.

[Wayman_Wong]

Posted: 5/20/25 at 6:53am

My thoughts (and spoilers) about PBS' production:

This really was a ''Great Performance'' that was beautifully shot, as directed for TV by Annette Jolles and originally directed for the stage by Leigh Silverman. David Henry Hwang's ''Yellow Face'' really lent itself to the small screen and closeups since so many of Hwang's scenes were two-person faceoffs, especially the dynamic and dramatic showdown between the fictionalized Hwang (Daniel Dae Kim) and the N.Y. Times reporter (Greg Keller).

"Yellow Face" is ostensibly about an Asian-American playwright who mistakenly and ironically casts a Caucasian actor in an Asian role, and follows his comical efforts to cover his ass. It could've been a dry polemic about race politics, but Hwang's wit turned it into a meta and madcap farce where he self-deprecatingly poked fun at his own ego and point-of-view. What other playwright would've included a funny vignette where he's publicly recognized when he's returning Asian porn to his local video store? Hwang widened the scope of ''Yellow Face'' to address the public face that all of us present to our society.

"Yellow Face" is also a wonderful showcase for Kim and Francis Jue's Tony-nominated, pitch-perfect performances, respectively as a bright playwright hoisted by his own petard and his proud, patriotic papa. This Roundabout revival additionally underscores the play's themes with nontraditional casting. Here, an African-American actress, Marinda Anderson, plays Jane Krakowski and Margaret Cho, and an Asian-American actress, Shannon Tyo, plays Michael Riedel, etc. Rounding out the excellent ensemble is Kevin del Aguila, plus the riotous Ryan Eggold, who portrays Marcus, the Caucasian who's mistaken for an Asian.

Though ''Yellow Face'' has its eyes on the prize at the Tonys on June 8, it'll be streamed through June 30 at PBS.org.

https://www.pbs.org/video/yellow-face-hbs4k2/

Updated On: 5/20/25 at 06:53 AM

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 5/20/25 at 8:15am

I enjoyed watching the PBS performance. I thought Jue and Eggold were the highlights. Daniel Dae Kim was solid too but not as strong as the other two I just mentioned. I was a little disappointed with Kevin Del Aguila, who I loved so much in Some Like It Hot.

The show moved a mile a minute for awhile but then slowed down towards the end. I feel like it could have probably benefited from trimming 15 mins because it got a little long for what it was. Still it was mostly enjoyable and I'm glad I got to see it.

[inception]

Posted: 5/20/25 at 8:18am

Pvr'd it & watched it Saturday as I couldn't stay awake Friday night.

Producers certainly saw recording this as a means to campaign for awards.  I just saw a post on the other board pointing out that the 2013 production was also recorded and is readily available on YouTube. There wasn't any specific need then to preserve the play itself, just this production. 

Fortunately it is in the revival category, so won’t be up against juggernaut Oh Mary! for best play.  Eureka Day is really its main competition as both R+J & the recent Our Town were not critical favourites,  although they did well at the box office.

I thought the play had a few interesting twists & turns, and took me places I wasn't expecting.  But like Purlie Victorious last year, I'm glad I waited & watched this on PBS for free.

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 5/20/25 at 8:24pm

I caught the broadcast Friday night. I previously saw a local production in my area almost three years ago. Revisiting it through this was a treat. There were a few parts I literally didn’t even remember from the first time until they happened. The first half is an absolute hoot of a comedy while the second half is more emotionally compelling. To think that the work itself is semi-autobiographical. Everyone in the cast fires on all cylinders, especially Daniel Dae Kim and Francis Jue.

Here’s hoping the production does well at the Tonys!

[Wayman_Wong]

Posted: 5/21/25 at 3:49am

''Producers certainly saw recording this as a means to campaign for awards.  I just saw a post on the other board pointing out that the 2013 production was also recorded and is readily available on YouTube. There wasn't any specific need then to preserve the play itself, just this production.''

Just wanted to offer a little more background on that 2013 production of ''Yellow Face.'' That was specifically created for YouTube, and was adapted and directed by Jeff Liu. It was made for the YOMYOMF Network, which was inspired by an Asian-American pop-culture blog. It's not a filmed version of the original two-part play that debuted in 2007 at the Public Theatre, starring Hoon Lee as DHH (a fictionalized Hwang), Noah Bean as Marcus G. Dahlman and Francis Jue as HYH (as Hwang's father). It also earned Obies for Hwang and Jue.

The YOMYOMF 2013 version is a hybrid of play and film. It includes some video graphics, like shots of Mickey Rooney in yellowface from ''Breakfast in Tiffany's'' and Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer in ''Miss Saigon.'' It starred Ryun Yu as DHH, Christopher Gorham as Marcus and Sab Shimono as HYH. (I once interviewed Shimono, who played Manjiro in 1976's ''Pacific Overtures,''  for The Sondheim Review, and he told me; ''I auditioned for the lead role of the Engineer in 'Miss Saigon,' and they said I couldn't do the material. A total lie.'' )

Just as many plays can support more than one version, the PBS' production of ''Yellow Face'' is a film capture of the show that played the Roundabout last fall. Hwang trimmed and revised it, so it's now a long one-act version. Under Leigh Silverman's direction, it also makes a more playful and expansive use of nontraditional casting.  Plus, in the wake of the Tony nominations, this ''Yellow Face,'' which played Broadway for the first time, captures Daniel Dae Kim and Francis Jue's Tony-nominated performances. Kim even makes more history as the first man of East/Southeast Asian ancestry to be EVER nominated for Leading Actor in a Play in the Tonys' 78-year history. Kim might be best known as a SAG Award-winning actor from ABC's ''Lost,'' but he's also an executive producer of ABC's ''The Good Doctor'' AND Audible's 2024 version of ''Yellow Face'' that starred him, plus Jason Biggs as Marcus and Benedict Wong as HYH. Clearly, Kim knows a good play and a good role when he sees one.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Yellow-Face-Audiobook/B0CS1RFKFB

Updated On: 5/21/25 at 03:49 AM

[binau]

Posted: 5/31/25 at 12:22pm

never mind

Updated On: 5/31/25 at 12:22 PM

[Hest88]

Posted: 5/31/25 at 9:25pm

Thanks for the background! We saw a local production just a few weeks ago, which seemed to be the original 2 act version, so it was especially interesting to watch the Broadway revival to see what stayed pretty much intact and what was changed or trimmed.

[binau]

Posted: 6/2/25 at 4:30am

Well I finally caught this and pretty much loved everything about it - seems like it's rare to come across genuinely new and interesting stories/concepts these days. Grounding much of the events in the real world makes it extremely easy to accept the absurdity and hilarity of the premise that the same playwright who protested against the "Yellow Face" of Miss Saigon in real life would then go on to accidentally do the exact same thing for his own play - but then like "Dear Evan Hansen" gets so caught up and tripped up in the 'lie' that he will go to absurd lengths to defend and fix his mistake (A RUSSIAN SIBERIAN ASIAN JEWWWW) and in doing so create a hilarious and complex satire that recognises some of the challenges of navigating these issues without losing sight of the fundamental goal of highlighting the importance of representation and highlighting racism (and in the specific context of Asian Americans, which too often feels like is not part of the conversation about race and racism in the USA). 

What I think makes the play work so well is that it is not a preachy morality lesson - we're never being preached to at all and we are being led to draw the conclusions ourselves based on the absurdity and hilarity of what is being presented to us. This is helped with the combination of a charismatic leading man, Daniel Dae Kim, in combination with David's self-deprecating writing. He doesn't take himself or his work too seriously, and is willing to make himself be the but of the joke time and time again if it helps get his ideas across in a way that avoids condescension and is so likeable and charming. Even his own father (played also in an utterly charming and likeable way by Francis Jue), apparently, seems more interested in David's publicity and fame than his actual work. 

The idea of using the supporting cast to often play real-life characters who resemble no likeness at all to the real person is genius. For example, a very boring and straight telling of the story would have had Cameron Macktinosh - a large gay white man - played by Kevin Del Aguila or Greg Keller. Instead, here it's Shannon Tyo (I THINK?) - a tiny asian woman which does its job of being both hilarious and conveying the subtextual message of the absurdity of not casting actors with appropriate identities. 

I love the meta-theatrical elements because it's something that only really works in the theatre. For example, the New York Times 'gotcha' moment or the 2nd act resolution of the Marcus/Ryan Eggold character.

What more could we possibly ask for? 

 

Updated On: 6/2/25 at 04:30 AM

[bear88]

Posted: 6/2/25 at 5:13am

binau said: "Well I finally caught this and pretty much loved everything about it - seems like it's rare to come across genuinely new and interesting stories/concepts these days. Grounding much of the events in the real world makes it extremely easy to accept the absurdity and hilarity of the premise that the same playwright who protested againstthe "Yellow Face" of Miss Saigon in real life would then go on to accidentally do the exact same thing for his own play - but thenlike "Dear Evan Hansen" gets so caught up and tripped up in the 'lie' that he will go to absurd lengths to defend and fix his mistake (A RUSSIAN SIBERIAN ASIAN JEWWWW) and in doing so create a hilarious and complex satire that recognises some of the challenges of navigating these issueswithout losing sight of the fundamental goal of highlighting the importanceof representation and highlighting racism (and in the specific context of Asian Americans, which too often feels like is not part of the conversation about race and racism in the USA).

What I think makes the play work so well is that it is not a preachy morality lesson - we're never being preached to at all and we are being led to draw the conclusions ourselves based on the absurdity and hilarity of what is being presented to us. This is helped with the combination of a charismatic leading man, Daniel Dae Kim, in combination with David's self-deprecating writing. He doesn't take himself or his work too serious is a way, and is willing to make himself be the but of the joke time and time again if it helps get his ideas across in a way that avoids condescension and isso likeable and charming. Even his own father (played also in an utterly charming and likeable way by Francis Jue), apparently, seems more interested in David's publicity and fame than his actual work.

The idea of using the supporting cast to often play real-life characters who resemble no likeness at all to the real person is genius. For example, a very boring and straight telling of the story would have had Cameron Macktinosh - a large gay white man - played by Kevin Del Aguila or Greg Keller. Instead, here it's Shannon Tyo (I THINK?) - a tiny asian woman which does its job of being both hilarious and conveying the subtextual message of the absurdity of not casting actors with appropriate identities.

I love the meta-theatrical elements because it's something that only really works in the theatre. For example, the New York Times 'gotcha' moment or the 2nd act resolution of the Marcus/Ryan Eggold character.

What more could we possibly ask for?

I didn’t like David Henry Hwang’s Soft Power, despite its occasional moments of genius, but I really enjoyed this play. What worked so well is that Hwang had serious points to make but allowed them to sneak up on you while much of the play raced along as a farce. 

This approach worked marvelously in Vietgone and Cambodian Rock Band (though the latter was more somber for obvious reasons and also featured a chilling Francis Jue), two of my favorite examples of the plays-with-music genre that exposed me to cultures and perspectives I hadn’t experienced, and it worked in Yellow Face without the music.

Jue’s arc as Hwang’s father feels comic until it really isn’t. Daniel Dae Kim, as Hwang, has a tricky role to play as Hwang but nails his climactic scene with Greg Keller’s reporter. Hwang - the playwright, not the character - has written a serious play with a message but had fun along the way while creating a hilarious, entirely fictional character who just really wants a community.