"I was one of the Asian American theatre people who protested the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in the musical MISS SAIGON when it came to Broadway, as an example of “Yellow Face” casting.. The intensity, vehemence, and anger I felt, on both sides of that issue, left me shaken for many years afterwards. So I wrote FACE VALUE, a comedy of mistaken racial identity, to explore the question, “What does it really mean to ‘play’ another race?” As noted above, FACE VALUE became an infamous flop, but the idea of doing a comedy of mistaken racial identity stayed with me for the next fifteen years or so. Eventually, I found another way to realize this notion with YELLOW FACE."
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Academics from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesPlaywrights from the United StatesScreenwriters from Los Angeles
Original Language: English
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On how his play Yellow Face helped him re-explore the themes first explored in Face Value in “An Interview with David Henry Hwang” in London Magazine (2013 May 30)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Henry_Hwang
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David Henry Hwang
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