Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang

by David Henry Hwang

“David Henry Hwang is a true original. A native of Los Angeles, born to immigrant parents, he has one foot on each side of a cultural divide. He knows America - its vernacular, its social landscape, its theatrical traditions. He knows the same about China. In his plays, he manages to mix both of these conflicting cultures until he arrives at a style that is wholly his own. Mr. Hwang's works have the verve of well-made American comedies and yet, with little warning, they can bubble over into the mystical rituals of Oriental stagecraft. By at once bringing West and East into conflict and unity, this playwright has found the perfect means to dramatize both the pain and humor of the immigrant experience.” –Frank Rich, New York Times

Throughout his career, David Henry Hwang has explored the complexities of forging Eastern and Western cultures in a contemporary America. Over the past twenty years, his extraordinary body of work has been marked by a deep desire to reaffirm the common humanity in all of us. This volume collects a generous selection of Mr. Hwang’s plays, including FOB , The Dance and the Railroad , Family Devotions , The Sound of a Voice , The House of Sleeping Beauties , The Voyage , Bondage , and Trying to Find Chinatown .

FOB is an OBIE Award-winning play that explores the contrasting experiences, attitudes, and conflicts of established Asian Americans and fresh-off-the-boat (FOB) Asian immigrants. One of David Henry Hwang’s earliest plays, FOB has been called “a theatrically provocative combination of realism and fantasy… A sensitive, insightful, and multilevel play” ( Christian Science Monitor ).

In The Dance and the Railroad , two Chinese workers on the Transcontinental Railroad struggle through poverty and hunger to reconnect with the traditions of their homeland. “An evocative portrait of the immigrant experience,” The Dance and the Railroad is set in 1867 during a strike in an Asian labor camp ( New York Post ).

Family Devotions takes a different look at the clash between East and West through the perspective of a Chinese American family living in a Los Angeles suburb. The Chicago Tribune calls Family Devotions “a funny and compassionate piece of writing.”

The Sound of a Voice is the original story of a lone samurai warrior and his encounter with a rumored witch in the woods. Inspired by Japanese folk stories and Noh theatre, this play of desperation and desire is about “timeless human emotion, a subject made all the more powerful by dialogue that rings with the power and rhythm of poetry” ( Asian Avenue Magazine ).

In The House of Sleeping Beauties , an elderly man visits a unique brothel filled with sleeping virgins, where customers are only permitted to sleep in a shared bed. Based on Hwang’s exploration of how the novelist Yasunari Kawabata was affected by his own stories, this play is “an earnest, considered experiment furthering an exceptional young writer's process of growth” ( New York Times ).

Hwang’s libretto for The Voyage was written in collaboration with composer Phillip Glass for the Metropolitan Opera’s 500th year celebration of Columbus Day. Instead of focusing on Christopher Columbus, however, the three act opera is a more general exploration of time, space, and possibility.

An encounter in an S&M parlor between a man and woman in full bodysuits sets the scene for Bondage , where their role play becomes “an exploration of race, love and politics in the weirdest possible contortions” ( Northwest Asian Weekly ).

Trying to Find Chinatown , an exploration of racial identity and appearance, revolves around the interaction between an Asian street musician and a Caucasian man who claims Asian American heritage.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Asian American

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

David Henry Hwang (Chinese: 黃哲倫; pinyin: Huáng Zhélún; born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright who has risen to prominence as the preeminent Asian American dramatist in the U.S.

He was born in Los Angeles, California and was educated at the Yale School of Drama and Stanford University. His first play was produced at the Okada House dormitory at Stanford and he briefly studied playwriting with Sam Shepard and María Irene Fornés.

He is the author of M. Butterfly (1988 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Awards, Pulitzer finalist), Golden Child (1998 Tony nomination, 1997 OBIE Award), FOB (1981 OBIE Award), The Dance and the Railroad (Drama Desk nomination), Family Devotions (Drama Desk Nomination), Sound and Beauty, and Bondage. His newest play, Yellow Face, which premiered at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum and New York's Public Theatre, won a 2008 OBIE Award and was a Finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. He wrote the scripts for the Broadway musicals Elton John & Tim Rice's Aida (co-author), Rodgers & Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song (2002 revival, 2003 Tony nomination), and Disney's Tarzan. His opera libretti include three works for composer Philip Glass, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, The Voyage (Metropolitan Opera), and The Sound of a Voice; as well as Bright Sheng's The Silver River, Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar (two 2007 Grammy Awards) and Unsuk Chin's Alice In Wonderland (Opernwelt's 2007 "World Premiere of the Year"). Hwang penned the feature films M. Butterfly, Golden Gate, and Possession (co-writer), and also co-wrote the song "Solo" with Prince. A native of Los Angeles, Hwang serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild. He attended Stanford University and Yale Drama School, and was appointed by President Clinton to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

Reviews

[Quentin Nguyen-duy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm no fan of "M. Butterfly" which I'm glad to report isn't a part of this anthology of plays from before and after Hwang's Pulitzer Prize winner. I much prefer his first three dramas ("FOB," "The Dance and the Railroad," "Family Devotions") and his mid-career one-act "Bondage," an enlightening S&M satire on role-playing. Equally good is "The Sound of a Voice" which, typical for Hwang, is clever without feeling glib, populist without pandering, deep but never ponderous.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really lovely collection of plays! Because there are so many, I won't try to say anything of interest about them here, but I particularly loved "The Voyage," "The Dance and the Railroad," "Bondage," and "Trying to Find Chinatown."

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cultural identity awesomeness!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The eight plays in David Henry Hwang's Trying to Find Chinatown were written between 1980 and 1996. All of them revolved around race, and there is a definite progression and maturity evident as the years go by. A pair of plays written in 1983, "The Sound of a Voice" and "The House of Sleeping Beauties" were my favorites. Both featured a man and a woman in their later years, both fables of sort, with a cautionary tone. His 1992 play "Bondage," and his 1996 plays, "Trying to Find Chinatown" were certainly his most provocative, and effective in their own way as well. His earlier plays were a bit frantic and overwrought for my tastes.

[MSJLibrary]

The award-winning Chinese American dramatist David Henry Hwang has had an extremely diverse creative life, not only writing plays, but also libretti for the composer Philip Glass, and the book for a production of the famous Giuseppe Verdi opera Aida. This career-spanning collection of plays explores many themes related to the Asian American experience, including the conflict between tradition and American culture, rampant discrimination and ill-treatment, and racial stereotypes.

[Anna-Catherine Lunsford · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is for “Trying to Find Chinatown.”