"Chinglish" at San Francisco Playhouse

 

SF Playhouse production photo by Jessica Palopoli

It's not often that we get to see a relatively new play twice, in very different incarnations. We saw David Henry Hwang's Chinglish at Berkeley Rep in 2012, and I recall liking it a lot (though this predates my blogging by several years, so I have no detailed notes on this). So I wasn't sure I needed to see the revival at SF Playhouse this year, but heck, we generally like shows there, and our friends were going, so why not?

Turns out the play has been extensively reworked, both to reflect more current geopolitics, but also to reframe the play from one written entirely in English to one largely spoken in Chinese, with the English translations projected onto the set. This makes the casting and production of the play much, much more difficult, and even though relatively few of the audience members in San Francisco will actually understand the Chinese, the crew has gone to great lengths to get it correct, down to the level of local dialect. The program notes on this are quite interesting! (But they no longer publish the program online, apparently, so you have to go see the show to read that.)

The Play

Chinglish centers on the CEO of a midwestern US sign company, Daniel, going to China to try to land the contract to put translated signs in a new, regional cultural center in China. Upon arriving he hires a local consultant, Peter, an expatriated Brit who has lived in China for about two decades and speaks the language fluently, to translate and to help him develop business relationships. Peter sets up meetings with the mayor of the town, Cai, and his assistant, Xi, who use a series of hilariously incompetent translators of their own.

Without spilling too many details, suffice it to say that all the players here have hidden agendas, and all of this is made more complex by the difficulties of understanding (and misunderstanding) another language. As some of the characters strike out on their own, trying to cut out the middlemen (both translators and parties with other interests), some new complications come to light.

The Production

First off, I was blown away by the Chinese in this play. A large portion of the dialogue takes place in Chinese, and according to the program notes, almost none of the cast speak Chinese natively, and none spoke the desired dialect. But from my perspective it came off nearly flawlessly. Not that I can judge the language per se, but it all seemed natural and fluent, and most importantly it all made sense in context. That seems like a big win.

Second, just a very strong cast, with particular emphasis on Matthew Bohrer (Peter), who has to carry off Chinese as well as two different British accents, Nicole Tung (Xi), who manages to sound as if English is very difficult for her, Alex Hsu (Cai) who manages to be broadly humorous without turning into a caricature, and Phil Wong (Bing and Judge Ju Geming), who shows great versatility and range.

And director Jeffrey Lo pulls it all together nicely. This was clearly a difficult show to put together, and it comes off very smoothly. The set (designed by Andrea Bechert) and the projections (by Spense Matubang) worked well, though some of the transitions were a bit needlessly clumsy, and the prjections got off a little at times. But on the whole, really good.

Mostly I was kind of overwhelmed by what an ambitious undertaking this play was--much more so than the English-only version I'd seen a decade ago--and how well it came out.And Robert Sokol's piece in the program detailing the work undertaken by Patrick Chew, the translator and cultural consultant for the production, was just outstanding.

Bottom Line

I thought this was an incredibly effective presentation of a thoughtful and difficult play. And more than almost any other revival/adaptation I can recall, this overhaul of the script into mixed languages was remarkably effective, and added a lot to what was already a pretty good script.

The quality of the production and Lo's direction were really effective. I have to say I recommend seeing this play quite strongly. Lucky for you, the play runs through June 10 (extended!), so you have lots of chances. Go see it!