Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven

[oyceter]

(Asian American Theater Company and Crowded Fire Theater, directed by Marissa Wolf)

Saw a production of Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven with Tari, S., C., via_ostiense, starlady, bluerabbit, and CB. I recycled the playbill, so I can't quote, but the introduction to the play said that Lee wrote it as a response to the "minority literature" pieces out there that talk about the minority experience in the US and Racism and Oppression and etc.

The play is staged in a bit of a black box theater, the entire space covered with plywood with a stylized flower in the center of the floor. It opens in the dark, with the sound of a man's voice instructing a woman who is being slapped. After a while, a video screens: a close-up of the playwright's face. She is sniffling, holding back tears, and every so often, an invisible hand loudly slaps her. We hear a pansori singer. (Later id'ed by Tari as doing a piece from Song of Chunhyang.)

Korean American comes out to introduce the play, followed by Koreans 1, 2, and 3, each in color-coded hanbok. Korean American speaks English with no [eta: a USian accent] and is dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Koreans 1, 2, and 3 spend one segment of the play speaking the respective languages of the actresses (Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese). The play continues with assorted vignettes, some of which are just odd, some of which are hilarious (Korean American with her grandmother omg).

The play itself was interesting, particularly how White People 1 and 2, a young cis het couple, had emo scenes arguing about their relationship, completely unconnected with the rest of the play. In the end, their narrative, boring and narcissistic as it is, takes over the entire play, which had me laughing hysterically.

The oddest bit, though, was going to the fireside chat afterward. I didn't connect to the play completely, but I didn't find it as uncomfortable as reviews said, and afterward, I felt even more alienated, like I was the intruder despite the play being produced by the Asian American Theater Company. All the things I had thought were obvious, such as how the White People scenes had nothing to do with anything and was narrowly, obsessively focused on itself and the occasional desire to improve the world and "I want to go to Africa," had not been that obvious to some of the audience.

Some audience members wanted to know what the point of the White couple was, especially since they seemed so mundane compared to the Asian people. I hadn't even realized that quite a few of the audience didn't even know that Koreans 1, 2, and 3 weren't even speaking Korean, and after me and the director pointed it out, another audience member commented on how Korean sounded like "angry Japanese."

But yes, this is why I mention having gone with so many people above; I think it would have been an entirely different experience if I'd only gone with a handful of friends or such. As it were, I am pretty sure me and CB were incredibly loud and nearly dying with laughter at several points when the people around us were not, and since all of us sat together for the fireside chat, I am fairly certain I was much louder and more obvious in my eye-rolling than I normally would have been. But honestly. Just the fact that the first few questions were all about the white people and what the play meant for them and OMG please explain what it is is saying about Asian culture to us?!

I am glad that later on, more Asian-Am people (some of the group I went with included) commented on their own experiences of the play, and I was particularly interested in the notes of how the multilingualness was done. (Lee wrote the entire play in English and wanted Koreans 1, 2, and 3 to be cast from any combination of East Asian actresses who spoke (an) East Asian language(s); part of Wolf's audition process was to see how each actress translated her own scene.) Tari also started getting into a bit of audience knowledge wrt the inclusion of the pansori snippet in the earliest sequence, which was a comedic contrast to the emotionally fraught scene, as opposed to an audience member wondering "what that music was." via_ostiense also mentioned how the play didn't feel like it was speaking to her own experience in particular. [eta: more accurate comment]

Overall, I felt that the play wasn't radical enough for me—I particularly wanted to see more being done with the multilingualness, particularly so that audience members who understood non-English languages were seeing a different play of sorts. Unfortunately, it also seemed to be too radical for many of the other people there. I realize this sounds snotty, but the points that I thought were extremely obvious to the point of being anvils had been not grasped at all by some audience members. There were some points in there about Korean-ness and general Asian stereotypes in the media, along with Korean Catholic [eta: (Protestant?) Christian] culture that felt spot on (CB nearly fell off his chair in the scene with the grandmother talking about Jesus; I nearly fell off my chair at the miming of various ways to commit suicide), but I didn't feel like I (non-white Asian-American me) was the play's core audience, which made me a bit sad.

I also looked up some reviews for this play later, and I feel that what I saw was not necessarily what the reviewers saw.

Links:
- Official page including a YouTube snippet of one of the first portions of the performance.

- SFGate review: "Besides Lee's forays into Korean American identity, she raises the daring notion that white people may be as human as anybody else."

- SF Examiner review: "One scene within the 70-minute piece, about a daughter in conflict with her tyrannical parents, is performed entirely in an Asian language (maybe more than one, as the actresses themselves come from various Asian backgrounds). Decipher it if you can.

"In another, more accessible scene, the Korean-American is persuaded by her overbearing, dying old-world grandmother to 'be humble' and pray to Jesus."


To all these reviews, I want to say: accessible to whom? Why? Deciphered by WHOM? Who are you presuming is the audience, and why in the world are you presuming that?

I do think Lee's play is directed more toward white people than I would have liked, or held back somewhat because she wanted it to be more "universal," but I also think she is reacting to the Amy Tan version of explaining it all to the white people by not explaining, or by using in jokes and making some people uncomfortable with the realization that they are in jokes. And some of them are jokes I am not in on, but you know what, that's okay. Because it's not about me (Chinese-American me who partially grew up in Taiwan), which some of the reviews and some of the audience members really did not seem to understand.

(People who went, please feel free to chime in more/correct me/whatnot in comments! I waited too long to write this up, and as usual, I have forgotten more than I wrote down.)

Comments

[trinker]

I have nothing more to add than "ooh!" and wishing that I were there with you all.

[oyceter]

Wish you had been here too! I suspect you would have had interesting commentary ;).

[via_ostiense]

One scene within the 70-minute piece, about a daughter in conflict with her tyrannical parents, is performed entirely in an Asian language (maybe more than one, as the actresses themselves come from various Asian backgrounds). Decipher it if you can.

I saw that review and my jaw dropped--what kind of lazy reviewing is it to NOT EVEN BOTHER TO FIND OUT WHICH LANGUAGES ARE BEING USED? AND THEY HAVE DISTINCT SOUNDS, WHAT IS THIS "MAYBE MORE THAN ONE" NONSENSE? AND "DECIPHER"!?! Yeah, foreign languages are encryptions and secret codes, they're not real languages. ARGGGGGHHH.

[oyceter]

I KNOW! I read that and was just O_O RLY WHUT?!?!?!

[delux_vivens]

I have to wonder how much of the negative reaction from reviewers is just being in a snit that there werent subtitles, b/c obviously there would have to be for them to get it, of course. Or something.

I realize this sounds snotty, but the points that I thought were extremely obvious to the point of being anvils had been not grasped at all by some audience members.

This sounds accurate. Not snotty.

[oyceter]

I read the reviews and my jaw dropped, and I had to double check to see if they had seen the same play I had. Because what they thought was daring and uncomfortable I thought was hilarious, and what they thought were cool points ("White people are people too!!!!") I totally rolled my eyes at.

[delux_vivens]

"Because what they thought was daring and uncomfortable I thought was hilarious, and what they thought were cool points ("White people are people too!!!!") I totally rolled my eyes at. "

This encapsulates my experience of discussions of racism on LJ.

[oyceter]

Pretty much this!

[tempested_bird]

Yeah, completely this.

[bravecows]

Korean American speaks English with no accent

What did that sound like? Or do you mean they had an American accent?

Thanks for the review, sounds like a v. interesting play!

[oyceter]

Ahah, thanks for the catch! I'd say an American accent, maybe even Californian (?), and one that I personally kind of identify as hearing among some Californian Asian Americans (or just the people I know?), but I am pretty terrible with accents on a broader scale.

[starlady]

Did someone say the actress had an L.A. accent? I can't recall, but yeah, definitely some kind of Californian/U.S.-ian accent.

[oyceter]

I don't actually remember? Thanks for the Californian/USian confirmation though! (I am still not quite sure what is a Californian accent, but that is probably because I am way too acclimated to it to tell.)

[yeloson]

tempestedbird and I went to to go see it I think on the first night?

I really liked the play for basically, "trolling the audience". I mean, it starts off with the playwright getting slapped in the face, goes into really dark places for the Korean characters, and finally ends on the White People Get a Happy Ending. Basically, it's mocking performances and narratives for white people in the whole process.

Our talk at the end was... 50% good and 50% bad. 2/3rds of the audience recognized that it wasn't just Korean being spoken on the stage. We did have a white woman say, "Oh, everyone was so stereotypical, like the angry asian character" which had us doing deep eye rolls, and one dude who was like, "Oh, the suicide stuff is so deep in the culture, like how Samurai commit seppuku" etc.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I heard the audience was less white the first night or so? I saw it the closing night, and it felt pretty predominantly white.

I really liked that it was mocking performances for white people, except then the later audience talk made me roll my eyes even harder! It was like... wow. Even if I thought the play wasn't too subtle on some points, they basically took what the play was mocking and then reflected it right back sincerely!

[yeloson]

Yeah, one of the white folks was like, "I felt the playwright was using the white man to show how she feels about herself, since she said she wanted to be a white person during one of the speeches" and I was thinking how much the play served as a Rorschach test for racism - how much do people normalize the whiteness and look for excuses to make it central even when it's not intended that way?

[oyceter]

Bwahaha re: Rorschach test for racism! But yeah, there were a few audience members who were really determined to get Deep and Significant Meanings out of the white people sections, and I was just, "Eh, no... it is funny because they are self-obsessed and then want to go to Africa?" Oh, also, nearly died laughing at the white woman's description of Africa paired with the white man's description of what sounded a lot like Strawberry Shortcake.

[via_ostiense]

"trolling the audience"

That is a perfect description of the play! Esp. with the crowd the night that oyceter and I went--when taking the play and the fireside chat together as one experience, it felt like a giant meta joke by the writer having lulz at well-meaning but ignorant white people looking to educate themselves about an exotic culture. The fireside chat conversations felt like performance art.

[troisroyaumes]

I felt a bit alienated by the fact that the play didn't really seem targeted towards a Korean-American audience; there were in-jokes but not as many as I expected and not really the sort of in-jokes that I would make with Korean-American friends. I also thought that bits of it were incoherent/confusing, specifically in how her statements about artistic vision and creativity in the play were supposed to tie into the commentary on identity and race that were going on in parallel. I felt that it implied a false dichotomy between individualism and group identity that she didn't really subvert, if that makes any sense. Possibly I am just hypersensitive to anything that reinforces the Amy Tan narrative. I think the exaggerated self-hatred was certainly making fun of that narrative but I also felt that the play still bought into it at times.

I would add that while I would agree that I laughed heartily at the grandmother talking about Jesus, I don't think it's a depiction of Korean Catholic culture--which has its own specific markers that weren't really there in the play--and from what I can tell from Googling, it sounds like Young Jean Lee's family was Protestant.

I really liked the play and thought it was pretty hilarious, but I have to agree that I wish it had gone further and had not been obviously intended as a play for a white audience.

Also, grrr, those reviews make me so annoyed! I am also still seething at the "angry-sounding Japanese" comment.

ETA: Also a few more details: the pansori excerpt was from the "watermelon song" which describes the first night that Yi Mongryong and Chunhyang spend together as newlyweds (video). It's not only comedic but also extremely bawdy? I wondered how much of the song choice was deliberate because it immediately made me think about the scene later in the story when Chunhyang is getting beaten for not submitting to Byeon Hakdo, and it was interesting to juxtapose those two associations with the video of the playwright's face getting slapped. Only problem was that it sort of set up my expectations for the play to go in a different direction than it actually did...

[oyceter]

*nods* Thanks for the comments, esp. re: Korean Catholic culture and lack of depiction thereof.

I was always a little uncomfortable and on the edge when she talked about how Asians saw themselves, or the evil Korean empire, I think because of the audience of the play; it's that knee-jerk reaction when you don't know if someone is going to take what was commentary on racism and use it as just plain racism.

I did also feel as though a lot of the cultural commentary was more generally Asian-American and less Korean specifically, and although I think some of it is as a reaction to how Korean-ness gets buried under Chinese-ness and Japanese-ness in mainstream USian culture (the addition of ninja and wuxia tropes and the interchangeableness of the actresses playing Koreans 1, 2, and 3), some of it feels like Lee chose to generalize it for a "broader" audience, which kind of annoys me.

But yeah, I did like the play, but I think a lot of my reservations with it have to do with your ETA... a lot of the details I thought Lee had put in there thoughtfully (such as the snippets of the story I got about the woman and her teacher and her father that was in Canto) turned out to be throwaway pieces, whereas pieces I would have made more throwaway (random white people going to Africa) were centralized. Which... I get why she did the latter, but I also wish there had been a play in there that had been directed specifically to a Korean-Am audience as well.

[starlady]

I was always a little uncomfortable and on the edge when she talked about how Asians saw themselves, or the evil Korean empire, I think because of the audience of the play; it's that knee-jerk reaction when you don't know if someone is going to take what was commentary on racism and use it as just plain racism.

Yeah, after thinking about it for this past week (thanks for writing this post, btw!), I think this was my biggest reservation about the play. Because clearly not everyone in the audience we saw it with understood which elements were deliberately stereotypical and were being mocked, and…it seems to me that there's a way to explode stereotypes by using them, but that the play didn't quite succeed at that. Particularly after the opening video clip, I was expecting it to be more direct, and less implicit; I would've liked it to be more radical with the multilingual aspects and such too, because even though I didn't understand everything (I didn't recognize the third language as Cantonese, for example, because I have zero meaningful experience with it) I thought it was really cool as theater. And you know, it's okay if I as an audience member/a white person don't understand everything!

But then my thought was, maybe Lee was attempting to deliberately thumb her nose at those expectations?

[oyceter]

Yeah, I think I was expecting it to either... go all the way and explode the stereotypes and be uncomfortable and threatening to the usual "multiculturalism" and "diversity" discussions, or to engage more directly? Or something. It just felt like some of each but not enough.

Like, I like her thumbing her nose at expectations of people going in to Learn More about Asian Cultures, but I kind of wish there had been more content for people who weren't going in for that as well.

[tempested_bird]

did also feel as though a lot of the cultural commentary was more generally Asian-American and less Korean specifically, and although I think some of it is as a reaction to how Korean-ness gets buried under Chinese-ness and Japanese-ness in mainstream USian culture (the addition of ninja and wuxia tropes and the interchangeableness of the actresses playing Koreans 1, 2, and 3), some of it feels like Lee chose to generalize it for a "broader" audience, which kind of annoys me.

I actually reacted to this strongly but for a different reason. You bring up a good point about how Koreanness often gets buried under Chinese and Japanese-ness in this culture, but this also has some pretty strong ties to how Korean culture is intertwined with both Chinese and Japanese culture, as both of these countries have occupied Korea in the past, and we're STILL dealing with the cultural ramifications of that. So I personally didn't feel like she was generalising it for a broader audience more than she was also pointing out the fluidity of certain aspects of culture.

[troisroyaumes]

That's a good point--and it reminds me that there's a lot of organizing/reclaiming done around the idea of a pan-Asian-American identity, especially here in the Bay Area.

[oyceter]

Oh that's interesting, thanks! I think I tend to react more conservatively when it comes to Chinese culture, largely because I am always "Yay! Chinese stuff I understand!" when it shows up and want to make sure I am not bulldozing the conversation with Chinese stuff, particularly given the history of Chinese colonization in Asia and making people pay tribute and stuff. (Okay, and a lot of people's tendencies to be "China! Bestest culture in Asia so there!")

I also wonder how much the audience affected my reading, since I was having much more fun teasing out strands of Japanese and Mandarin and Canto and picking out stereotypes until later on, when I realized that a lot of the audience didn't even realize people weren't speaking Korean =(.

[troisroyaumes]

Heh, no worries--I think the Korean Catholic markers wouldn't really be apparent to anyone who wasn't Catholic. E.g. the most glaring absence to me (and I'd bet CB would agree with me) was no mention of the Virgin Mary.

it's that knee-jerk reaction when you don't know if someone is going to take what was commentary on racism and use it as just plain racism.

Nod, thinking on it further, parts of it reminded me specifically of internalized racism narratives, and I think those elements were especially ambiguous in straddling that line between effective parody and inadvertent reinforcement. The internalized aspect of it made me squirm, because I do not want to have that conversation in front of a white audience ever, whereas the more exaggerated mockery of exoticization just made me laugh (like that moment when the three Koreans are posing/dancing to stereotypical "This is Asian!" music).

I did also feel as though a lot of the cultural commentary was more generally Asian-American and less Korean specifically, and although I think some of it is as a reaction to how Korean-ness gets buried under Chinese-ness and Japanese-ness in mainstream USian culture

I actually wasn't bothered so much by the cross-cultural aspects. But a lot of the in-jokes felt like they were obviously constructed specifically to discomfit white audiences rather than reflecting how Asian-Americans joke about themselves, so it felt performative and thus somewhat alienating. I mean, I think it was again a problem of what was missing rather than what was there. In-jokes that I would have made or have heard made are more along the lines of jokes about "Azn" pride or breakdancing or heck, even the usual not-so-very-in-jokes about formality levels in language...Then again, that would probably make for a very different sort of play.

And heh, now that I've blathered all over your comments, I feel like I have a much better grasp on what I liked and disliked about the play, so thanks for making this post! ^^

[oyceter]

So know what you mean about not wanting to have that conversation in front of a white audience! I also wonder how differently I would have thought of the play with a different fireside chat afterward. I think if something like these DW comments had been said in person, I would have come out being much happier, as opposed to being discomfitted that people may have just gone away with the play with "White people are people too!" a la the reviews.

Like, I think it's not that difficult to make fun of suicide stereotypes for East Asian cultures, but I think I also wanted something more nuanced, like the commentary on the pansori music with the opening sequence that would have also rewarded people going in with more knowledge or something. More layers I guess?

It is not blathering! It has been really useful for me to work out what I liked and disliked about the play as well, even with a week's worth of memory loss on my part ;).

[thistleingrey]

hmm, fascinating. I think I am glad I've had only my reading experience for this one (the fireside chat thing would've lit me on fire). It could definitely have gone farther, agreed. It seems to me that Lee wanted Asian Am viewers to feel unsettled, still, that things do not get to be about them/us even in a play like this, but I agree that the throwaway/not-throwaway balance is a bit puzzling in places.

(Yeah, definitely Protestant--EFC. See also.)

[oyceter]

Yeeeah, the audience talk was... eh. bluerabbit was all "NOT ENOUGH FREE ALCOHOL!" which encapsulates my reaction.

Also, ooo, thanks for the link!

[via_ostiense]

via_ostiense also mentioned how the play didn't feel like it was speaking to her own experience in particular.

Hmm, that's true, and I had more of the feeling that it wasn't meant to, or that it was mocking the notion that it ought to, if that makes sense. There are certain Immigrant/2nd-gen/Diversity Narratives (TM) that are accepted in American mainstream culture, whether literature, news, or film, which end up being hailed as typifying the "immigrant experience," and win plaudits and are supposed to resonate with all members of the minority group represented in the work, and I thought the play made fun of that notion, the idea that the experiences of a diverse group of people can be universally represented by a single narrative. So what I felt was not so much that the play didn't speak to my life experiences, but that it ridiculed the notion that it should, or that I should expect to find moments of connection based on it being about a Korean-American.

[oyceter]

Thanks for the clarification! I remembered the first part of your comment but obviously not the second more important bit -_-;;.

[troisroyaumes]

Hm, interesting...I agree that the play was mocking the standard "single-story" narrative but I think my main problem with the play was that it sometimes felt that it had also internalized that narrative. Possibly this ties back into what oyceter and starlady talked about above in terms of the thin line between mocking stereotypes and reinforcing them. I would have been more satisfied if the approach taken to subverting the dominant narrative about Asian-Americans had incorporated more counternarratives, especially by including perspectives that aren't normally represented in the mainstream culture. /still thinking out loud and processing my reactions to the play

[dolores_crane]

Overall, I felt that the play wasn't radical enough for me...Unfortunately, it also seemed to be too radical for many of the other people there

Oh, God, I know this feeling so well (more in sexuality/gender terms than race)... Mostly I just wanted to say thanks for this write-up: it's really thought-provoking, and I think I would have enjoyed the play. But thinking about it, I feel like I would have enjoyed it because of the mocking decentralization of white experience - which perhaps makes the play turn back on itself: am I (a working-at-being-antiracist white person) the core audience? Because I shouldn't be. Hmmm. I'll be thinking about this for a while, anyway, so thanks again.

[oyceter]

Thanks for reading, and glad you found it helpful!