“Tony Award ® winner and three-time Pulitzer finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) will make his Roundabout debut with the Broadway premiere of Yellow Face, his hilarious is-he-or-isn’t-he comedy of identity, show business, and (perhaps) autobiography. Starring Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) and directed by Tony nominee Leigh Silverman (Violet).
In this play inspired by real events, the playwright’s fictionalized doppelgänger protests yellowface casting in Miss Saigon, only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play. This Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer finalist play is a laugh-out-loud farce about the complexities of race.”
Seventeen years is an eon in theater time, enough to make some plays feel as dated as fondue and Fawlty Towers, but David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face has aged well. Currently receiving its belated Broadway premiere in a swift, tangy production by Leigh Silverman — who also directed its first New York run in 2007 — the play retains its bite in part because its essential subject, like that of many a good comedy, is human folly. “Are you familiar with the Chinese concept of ‘face’?” asks a character in Hwang’s play — that’s as in “losing face” or “saving face.” Although both the inciting incident and the core conflict of Yellow Face have to do with instances of Asian impersonation by a white actor, there’s a reason Hwang’s title has a space in it. It’s not just about white foolishness — it’s about his own, too.
Perception, and who gets to control it, is at the heart of “Yellow Face,” which previously played off-Broadway’s Public Theater in 2007, also under the direction of Leigh Silverman. Hwang’s interest in setting the record straight can seem like an ego trip, and the staging, though pleasantly efficient, has a somewhat clinical feel. So many headlines appear in projection (designed by Yee Eun Nam) that occasionally the play reads like Hwang’s salvo in an ongoing beef with the New York Times.
2007 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
2024 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway Premiere Production Broadway |
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