Yellow Face

Race is a slippery topic in American society -- and in American theater as well it would seem, given how the subject escapes the grasp of David Henry Hwang (the character) in the play "Yellow Face" by David Henry Hwang (the playwright).

Loosely based on events that really happened -- Hwang, the Tony-winnning author of "M. Butterfly," found himself in the midst of a brouhaha when Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce was cast in an Asian role for the Broadway run of "Miss Saigon" -- "Yellow Face" starts off firmly perched on a sense of racial right and wrong.

But certitudes of all sorts start to crumble in short order. When Hwang (Michael Hisamoto) writes a new play, "Face Value," about the problem of Caucasian actors taking Asian roles -- playing in "yellow face," much as white actors used to play African-American characters in black face makeup -- and then wrestles with the problem of casting a crucial part, the situation starts to writhe out of his grasp. Hwang casts a white actor, Marcus G. (Adam Barrameda), in the role, and to justify the selection he deludes himself -- with no evidence to support the notion -- into thinking that Marcus has some Asian blood. When the casting of Marcus excites criticism and questions, Hwang invents the implausible explanation that Marcus is the descendant of Siberian Jews.

Marcus buys into the deceit (and the Asian American community) with such enthusiasm that even when Hwang fires him, he still embraces the stage name Hwang invented for him -- and the stage ethnicity Hwang cooked up, as well. Meantime, Hwang's life grows ever more complicated as off-stage events catch up with his father (Eric Cheung), a successful banker and Chinese immigrant who becomes embroiled in a wave of anti-Chinese hysteria fed by a reporter referred to only, and with a sharp tongue tucked pointedly in cheek, as "Name Withheld on Advice of Council" (Ajay Jain).

The play's plot may seem airily, simplistically satirical -- what could be simpler to make fun of than our country's intractable minefield of racial sensitivities? -- but where many plays have danced nimbly, and yet to trivial effect, across that very minefield, there are deeper and more painful currents at work here. Hwang the playwright has created a play that's as crafty and cutting as a razor-bladed puzzle box. Beat by beat, Hwang the character is herded into impossible reversals and inescapable corners, until finally he grasps the nettle and pulls a brilliant reversal -- one that guts his own reputation, but allows him to prevail.

As a cautionary tale, "Yellow Face" couldn't be more timely. Today's xenophobic and punitively prejudicial rhetorical excesses may overtly be aimed at Spanish-speaking people from south of our borders, but in such times resentments and rumor flit all too easily from target to target and rhetoric too handily translates from mutterings and slanders to damaging legislation. This is a play to watch, because it puts its finger squarely on dangers that warrant watchfulness.

The entire cast demonstrate flexibility and fluidity, from Hisamoto's slowly melting layers of self-justification to Barreneda's sympathetic (and naive) drift into deep waters. Ensemble members Mara Palma, Helen Swanson, Radha Shukla, and the aforementioned Cheung and Jain tackle numerous characters with such assurance and success that you'd almost think the cast was three times larger than it is.

This is a bare-bones production, to the point that sound effects are undertaken by the actors themselves; a ringing phone is signified by one or another of the actors chirping, "Brrring! Brrrring!!" You raise an eyebrow at this at first, but director Cliff Odle knows exactly what he is doing: The story, and the acting, work their magic, and lo-tech pretense morphs into the sort of raw, rough, and surrealistic conviction that speaks to higher truths and brings its own brand of courage into the room. Well played, in several senses of the word.

"Yellow Face" runs July 15 - 31 at the Boston Center for the Arts. For tickets and more information, please go to http://officeofwarinformation.com/current-production