David Henry Hwang and Leigh Silverman discussed the experience of writing and directing their Broadway production Yellow Face at the Lenfest Center of the Arts.

On Wednesday, October 30, the Columbia University School of the Arts hosted faculty member and playwright David Henry Hwang and Tony-nominated director Leigh Silverman to discuss their Broadway production Yellow Face. Starring Daniel Dae Kim in the lead role, Yellow Face is a reprisal of Hwang’s original show, which premiered in 2007 and is described as a “laugh-out-loud farce about the complexities of race.” This event was the first in the School of the Arts’s Speak Now series, which aims to highlight artists whose work “embodies the spirit of adventurous creativity.”

Sarah Cole, the Dean of the School of the Arts and Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature, began by introducing the event’s moderator, James Ijames, a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-nominated playwright. She then connected today’s talk to Columbia’s ongoing initiative to use education and the arts to critically address issues of systemic discrimination and exclusion. Yellow Face “does just that,” she said, referring to its ability to make the audience ponder poignant questions of race, identity, and family, all while being “disarmed” by the play’s “charm and humor.”

When Ijames asked the two about the origins of the play, Hwang described his experience attending the 1990 protests against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the lead in Miss Saigon. Miss Saigon originally opened in the West End in 1989, featuring British actor Pryce in prosthetics and colored foundation to play the role of an Asian engineer. In a time when Asian stories and other characters of color were few and far between on stage, protestors took to the streets to object to the controversial casting decision. Hwang was part of this crowd, and he realized only recently that he was “kind of traumatized” by the experience of being canceled and blacklisted for his role in the protests. He attempted to process these emotions through his first play, Face Value, which never made it past previews.

However, he believed strongly in the central concept—a commentary on mistaken identity through an unreliable memoir format—which led him to write Yellow Face in 2007. Silverman felt drawn to directing the piece, always believing that “David was ahead of the curve.” This is the show’s Broadway premiere, although it has seen several previous off-Broadway productions. The two felt like it was the right time to bring the play back as themes of Asian American hate remain relevant today, particularly after the pandemic.

Ijames also asked Hwang and Silverman about their deployment of humor to explore subjects that are often traumatic. Hwang said that humor is a kind of coping mechanism—a “passive-aggressive” way of getting at difficult issues. His jokes are more inherently comic situations rather than snappy one-liners; for example, Yellow Face’s protagonist, DHH, accidentally casts a white actor in his play in the role of an Asian character, which is naturally amusing but also provides social commentary. Silverman noted that she understood that DHH’s character was the worst, but in an almost relatable way that she tried to make clear to audience members through her direction. Viewers join DHH on his journey of learning and growth, which allows the play to “shapeshift.”

As for the exploration of trauma in Yellow Face, Hwang felt compelled to process his own negative experiences with racism and ostracization by naming the central character after himself. More explicitly than with his current play, Hwang’s previous piece, called Soft Power (also directed by Silverman), was an attempt to process his complex emotions after being the victim of a stabbing. 

Silverman then elaborated on the differences between the show in 2007, during its original release, and now in 2024. A major contrast she pointed out was the choice of casting. She and Hwang transitioned from a more binary approach, with white and Asian cast members, to being more ambitious about reflecting racial diversity. In 2007, the majority defending Pryce in the original Miss Saigon “ignored the institutional and historical bias” present in the art world. In a society where “white people get to play everyone and people of color get to play themselves sometimes,” the two strove to push the envelope by having people of color play a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds.

An audience question similarly referenced casting choices, with an emphasis on Daniel Dae Kim as the lead and Hwang’s thoughts on Asian casting being seen as a broad category without ethnic distinctions. Hwang responded that he grew up in a period where many were still struggling to conceptualize “Asian American” as an idea, so representation naturally became a bit more Pan-Asian. For him, cross-Asian casting suggests that the most important question is not “where are you really from,” but that artistic liberties are able to be taken with ethnicity. However, this is not a “hard and fast rule” for him; he believes there are specific circumstances where it is better to cast considering ethnicity, and this should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

When looking outwards to Asian American and diverse artistic production as a whole, Hwang and Silverman are proud of the current progress but agree there is much work to be done. Hwang points out that there are almost no shows on Broadway featuring true Asian American stories (most are about Asians in Asia), but there are many triumphs off-Broadway and on television with AAPI writers and narratives. 

While Silverman believes this is a good example of progress, it is decidedly too slow. In 2007, she was the seventh woman to direct a Broadway play. While ten women directed Broadway plays last year, only one was a woman of color. Yellow Face has a lot of power in promoting diverse stories, but as Silverman said, the fact remains that “Broadway has been a place that is most hospitable for white men on creative teams.” However, in the off-Broadway world, directing positions are much more welcoming to marginalized communities and offer hope for the future of theater.

Hearing Hwang and Silverman’s perspectives on an institution of theater that I grew up around was incredibly eye-opening. Broadway and other spheres of artistic production have a distinctly political history that sometimes goes unnoticed, with consistent protests from marginalized groups about representation on and off screen. Hwang and Silverman both have a unique and inspiring approach to their art, using humor in a way that lightens the mood in their stories but also invites introspection from audience members. 

You can continue to see Yellow Face in the Todd Haimes Theatre until its run ends on November 24.

Stage via Bwarchives