“Yellow Face” explores the nature of cultural identity, and its uses

David Henry Hwang won the Tony Award in 1988 for his play M. Butterfly, crowning his position as a leading voice in the Asian-American theatrical community. Two years later, Hwang, along with M. Butterfly star B.D. Wong, wrote letters of protest against the casting of British actor Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian character in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon — a role Pryce created in London. The uproar caused by Actor’s Equity’s decision first to bar Pryce from acting the part on Broadway, then relenting after producer Cameron Mackintosh decided to cancel the show’s transfer, forms the background for the first Broadway production of Hwang’s play Yellow Face.

Hwang inserts himself into Yellow Face as a character listed as DHH, played by Daniel Dae Kim. After the Miss Saigon controversy dies down, DHH creates a new play, Face Value. Unfortunately, misled by his casting agent, he has unwittingly cast a white actor, Marcus G. Dahlman (Ryan Eggold), to play the lead Asian role.

To avoid embarrassment, DHH convinces Marcus to claim he is of Siberian Jewish ancestry — since Siberia is in Asia — and use the stage name “Marcus Gee”. Marcus finds himself embraced by the Asian-American community and decides to maintain the deception by playing up his “Eurasian” background, even falling in love with DHH’s former girlfriend, Leah (Shannon Tyo).

At the same time, DHH’s father, Henry Y. Hwang, or HYH (Francis Jue), who emigrated from China and headed the first Federally-chartered Asian-run bank in the United States, puts DHH on the bank’s board. HYH later finds himself under investigation: the government is suspicious of large amounts deposited by Chinese entities into his bank. It is part of a general investigation into Chinese espionage in America. HYH, having considered himself as American as the Americans he saw in movies in his youth, cannot fathom this turn of events. The situation is not helped by a writer for the New York Times (Greg Keller) making a name for himself with articles “investigating” possible Chinese interference, all the while claiming he has “no agenda.”

Yellow Face starts off somewhat haltingly. It takes a while until the audience realizes that instead of a semi-autobiographical treatise on stereotyping in the theater world, it is seeing a mockumentary. Watching DHH’s increasingly entangled attempts to hide his original mistake — and then having his attempts to come clean dismissed as jealousy or worse — it’s hard not to laugh at the dizzying tightrope-walking act DHH has to perform to avoid the perils of racial “insensitivity.”

Yellow Face also serves as playwright Hwang’s love letter to his late father. DHH’s view of contemporary society clashes with HYH’s unshakeable belief in the Hollywood-ized America of his youth. Yet a poignant scene near the end of the play makes it clear that, for all his exasperation, DHH deeply loves and respects his father.

The cast, directed by Leigh Silverman, play their parts with self-justified moral certainty, believing in their own illogical reasoning with deadly seriousness. Aside from Daniel Dae Kim, the rest of the cast — Eggold, Jue, Keller, Tyo, Marinda Anderson, and Kevin Del Aguila — play multiple parts, ranging from reporters to protesters, government figures to casting agents, and celebrities such as Mark Linn-Baker and Jane Krakowski, shifting like quicksilver into their various personas. Francis Jue deserves special attention for his deeply rounded performance as the clever yet naive HYH.

The set, designed by Arnulfo Maldonado and lit by Lap Chi Chu, is composed of tall vertical box shapes on two turntables that revolve to create the various locales required by the show’s plot. Clever projections by Yee Eun Nam display newspaper headlines and pull quotes from contemporary print articles on the controversies and scandals within the play.

Although Yellow Face does take a little while for the audience to recognize its satirical tone and gain permission to laugh at its goings-on, its resolution leaves its audience with questions to ponder on the role of race in society — especially how one considers their own racial identity and who gets to assign an “acceptable” or “authentic” way to express one.

Yellow Face may not be a laugh-out-loud farce but it does have a lot of absurdist humor woven through it. It points out that all of us, regardless of race, make unintentional mistakes and screw up how we handle the consequences. If this sounds like an experience you’d enjoy, I heartily recommend seeing Yellow Face!

Yellow Face is presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company at the Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd St., in New York through Nov. 24, 2024. For more information, or to purchase tickets, go to roundabouttheatre.org or call 212-719-1300.