The Chinese Lady, Central Square Theater in partnership with CHUANG Stage at Central Square Theater, Cambridge, through December 11.617-576-8278 or centralsquaretheater.org
Racism has taken many faces and forms in America. The repeated exploitation of Native Americans tribes and the 1619-starting enslavement of African-Americans are well-documented and studied in many schools. The beginnings of racist treatment of Chinese-Americans may be much less well-known. A recent Lloyd Suh play entitled "The Chinese Lady" (2018)—focused on the first known Chinese native to arrive in America—should rightly bring greater attention to anti-Chinese racism. Central Square Theater and CHUANG Stage—the first Mandarin-English bilingual bicultural theater company nationwide—have partnered to produce this striking and beautifully staged fact-inspired look at a 19th century Chinese teenager placed at the center of a profitable stereotype-rich touring exhibition.
The teenager in question is 14 year old Guangzhou (formerly Canton City) native Afong Moy, bought from her father and brought to New York City in 1834 by brother merchants Nathaniel and Frederic Caine in order to call business attention to their Chinese goods. Creating a kind of very large museum display room with Afong Moy dressed in an ornate silk outfit—kudos to costume designer Sandra Zhihan Jia—on a kind of throne chair and assistant Atung also serving as translator, the Caines had her proceed to make Chinese tea, eat with chopsticks, explain her country's social practices and walk around with bound feet. For this unusual exhibition they initially charged adults 25 cents and children 10 cents (with admission repeatedly rising over the course of two decades).
"The Chinese Lady" artfully begins with Atung stage left opening a ceiling-high stage-wide curtain to reveal that exhibition—elegant yet smartly spare with furniture (that the Caines hope will lead to customers for their own merchandise) and a flower-filled vase in Qingan Zhang's design—in which Afong sits as a kind of faux cultural centerpiece waiting to fulfill the Caines' demands. In a room unlike any in China at that time, Moy declares "My entire life is a performance." As she speaks, the Central Square Theater audience—and any audience for that matter—effectively become the attendees at the exhibition. Mention is made of a 40 week tour to 15 cities including Boston and such cities as Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
In a tellingly ironic moment, Moy envisions the possibility of a 14 year-old white counterpart on display in China and being like Atung. Even so, she speaks of the young translator as "irrelevant" and considers the relatively stoic assistant passive aggressive. Throughout the 90-minute, no-intermission play, the openings and closings of the curtain—accompanied by Asian music--separate Moy's 'performances.' One particularly haunting scene finds President Andrew Jackson—now rightly vilified for his actions against Cherokee Native Americans—creepily inspecting and touching Moy's right bound foot. Gradually the set becomes barer as though symbolizing the eventual decline in popularity of the exhibition (1850 the last recorded display). Later P.T. Barnum demeans Moy still further in his own show.
As the years go by, Moy becomes understandably subdued and the play includes a disturbing timeline with rising anti-Chinese action. The escalating hatred results in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act--the only legislation passed against one race or ethnic group—which lasts until 1943. Under Sarah Shin's strong direction, Sophorl Ngin as Afong artfully moves from naivete and hope to a growing understanding of the ways in which she has been exploited. Along the way she beautifully captures Moy's regal bearing, her disarming simplicity and her evolving attitude towards Atung. By contrast, Jae Woo sharply understates Atung's reservations about his work and the exhibition itself. Woo's terrific breakout moment occurs as Atung casts caution to the wind and describes a wild dream of loving women and overpowering men.
Do Americans—and by extension all people—often create boxes of stereotypes about people who are different from them? In this light, "The Chinese Lady" is a clever cautionary tale as well as a timely eye-opener.