By Laura Zornosa
Power, class, ambition. The stage has always had something to say about all three, just rarely through the eyes of Asian actors or narratives. Three productions, in three cities, are changing that right now, and none of them are doing it gently.
Enter Here Lies Love in Los Angeles, Miss Julie in Chicago, and Chinese Republicans in New York—works that don’t share a style or a sensibility but share something harder to name: a refusal to make Asian identity look performative.
On power: ‘Here Lies Love’
Here Lies Love, the disco-pop musical with music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, has always been contentious: It recounts the rise and fall of the Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos through the lens of his wife, Imelda Marcos. The musical made strides toward representation in 2023 with Broadway’s first-ever all-Filipino cast, but has been resoundingly criticized for painting the Marcoses (and their martial law) in too sympathetic a light. Now, as the U.S. inches toward an eerily similar authoritarianism, the questions it raises about absolute power ring ever more relevant. Performances through April 5.
On class: ‘Miss Julie’
Court Theatre made an incisive choice in casting Mi Kang as Miss Julie. This play, written by August Strindberg in 1888, chronicles the class tension between Miss Julie, the aristocratic daughter of a count and a commoner, hemmed in by societal expectations, and Jean, her father’s valet. For Miss Julie to be played by an Asian American woman, then, comments on both recent media portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans as associated with wealth (Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite) and Miss Julie’s status within the play as a “model minority.” Performances through March 8.
On ambition: ‘Chinese Republicans’
Chinese Republicans, Roundabout Theatre Company tells us, “tells a truly American story.” If that story is about ambition, the tantalizing allure of social mobility, and the vacuous American dream—well, then, yes. Alex Lin’s play follows four high-powered women in finance (three Chinese Americans and one Chinese immigrant), ages 24 to 65, as they scrabble up the rickety corporate ladder. But how much of themselves will they sacrifice to reach the elusive top? And does that top rung even exist for women like them?
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