David Henry Hwang Discusses Identity, Stereotypes and the Writing Life

By
Georgette Jasen
March 21, 2013

Prize-winning playwright David Henry Hwang doesn’t mind being labeled an Asian-American dramatist. “It’s literally true,” he said during a recent visit to Columbia. “I am Asian-American and I am a dramatist, and I write about Asian-American subjects quite a lot. Besides, if critics can put a label on you, you get written about a lot more.”

The question came during a Feb. 20 discussion about his plays, his writing process and his interest in Asian culture, the immigrant experience and the search for identity. It was part of the Writing Lives Series sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities and, in this instance, co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.

Hwang, who has been a playwriting mentor to MFA students at the School of the Arts since 2009, is the author of the Tony Award-winning "M. Butterfly" and Broadway hit "Chinglish," as well as more than a dozen other plays. He also has written four operas with Philip Glass, several screenplays, and cowrote the narration for "Icarus at the Edge of Time," a multimedia adaptation of Physics Professor Brian Greene's children’s book.

In "M. Butterfly," inspired by the Puccini opera "Madama Butterfly," Hwang said the protagonist starts out thinking of himself as the opera’s Pinkerton, the U.S. naval officer who marries a 15-year-old Japanese girl, Butterfly, the archetype of a submissive Asian woman who sacrifices herself for a white man. By the end, he realizes that he is really Butterfly, deceived and blinded by love.

The play is based on the true story of a French diplomat who had a 20-year relationship with a beautiful Chinese woman, who turned out to be a man in drag, and a spy to boot. Despite its critical success, it angered many Asian-Americans, feminists and members of the gay community. “But what are we doing as artists if we’re not trying to create things that people are talking about and have strong feelings about?” he said.

"Chinglish", which also explores cultural and gender differences, is the story of an American businessman who comes to China and meets a Chinese woman who speaks a little English. They become lovers and “it doesn’t end well,” said School of the Arts Professor Gregory Mosher, who participated in the conversation with Hwang and Jean Howard, the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities.

“There are cultural differences and predispositions and assumptions,” said Hwang. “There are misunderstandings even if you speak the same language.”

Masks and makeup play a role in much of his work to illustrate “the fluidity of identity,” he said. “You think you are one person and you really aren’t.” So do music and movement, which allow him to incorporate Asian elements into his work. The Dance and the Railroad, currently playing off-Broadway, is about two Chinese-American railroad workers in 1867, one of them trained in Chinese opera who uses the movements he learned as he works. Hwang is currently working on a play about martial artist Bruce Lee, called Kung Fu, which is expected to have its premiere early next year.

During a question-and-answer period, a student asked Hwang about his writing process. Hwang replied that he begins with “some sort of question and how I feel about it,” and when he starts, he already knows how the play will end. In M. Butterfly, he said, the question was how the diplomat could not know that his lover was deceiving him.

Another student, who identified herself as an American-born Chinese troubled by stereotypical depictions of Asian-Americans on stage, wondered how actors should respond. “Everyone has to figure out their own line in the sand,” Hwang said. “You also have to find a way to make a living.”

Asked what advice he would give to young playwrights, Hwang said, “It’s important to hear your work and see your work. It’s important to stage it. Nobody knows if it’s going to be successful, so you might as well write what you believe in.”

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