Wednesday, March 20, 2019
David Henry Hwang On Theater, Trump, And Asian-American Identity
The Theatre Times: American writers don’t get much bigger than David Henry Hwang. The award-winning playwright’s best-known works, which include FOB, M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Chinglish, are some of the most acclaimed works in the modern theatrical canon. Indeed, Hwang’s influence on the American dramatic arts has been so profound that a society was established in 2016 for the scholarly examination of his works.
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In Foundations of Drama a group is studying M. Butterfly. As an Asian American, I find David Henry Hwang’s work incredibly important. We don’t have enough representation of Asians in mainstream media, but it’s also important that the representation isn’t stereotyped. Asians need to stop only being cast as the nerdy sidekick or badass ninja sidekick. Hwang’s work makes people care not only about the Asian culture, but portrays it accurately, changing the game in Asian stereotypes. This is especially important in such a divided world of xenophobia and growing nationalism. Hwang is a crucial role in the development of Asian American theater. Lin Manuel Miranda broke ground with Hamilton’s diverse cast. Hopefully Hwang will be able to do the same with a strong emphasis on Asian representation. I hope this changes within my lifetime so that my posterity no longer is stereotyped and type casted. I know that I feel the stigmas surrounding me everyday, and hopefully there is a change in the near future.
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