Background
During 1970s, Frank Chin is one of most influencial theatric writers. He has two well-known movies: Chickencoop Chinaman (1972) and Year of the Dragon (1974) which pushed people focusing on the lives of Aisan American. After examing the two plays, we have more interested in Year of the Dragon.
About the writer
According to Oxford Encyclopedia Theatre and Performance, Frank Chin founded the Asian American Theater Workshop in San Francisco in 1972. Two years later the workshop became the Asian American Theater Company, the first theatre dedicated exclusively to the production of plays by and about Asian America. Besides, Chin's early workshops received encouragement from San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles sponsored Chay Yew's Asian Theatre Workshop. At the end of the twentieth century Asian-American theatre companies could be found in virtually every urban centre in the United States.
About the story
The play tells the story of Fred Eng, 30-something tour guide who lives at home in Chinatown with his parents and younger brother, Johnny. Fred is frustrated because ten years earlier he had given up his dreams of being a writer to help his cancer-stricken father run the tour guide business. Yet, not only is his father still alive, he also has no respect for Fred's desire to be a writer and mocks Fred for dropping out of college, even though Fred did so to help him. Fred also hates working as a tour guide, as he must act out the white tourists' fantasy of what Chinese people are like, unable to make them understand that Chinatown is not China and that its residents are Americans too. Fred is also frustrated that his brother Johnny, in addition to running with a bad crowd, is not interested in leaving Chinatown for a better life, but wants to become part of the family business.The conflict of the play centers around a Chinese New Year celebration when Fred's sister, Sissy, comes to visit with her sinophile white husband, Ross. Sissy has been on tour promoting a Chinese cookbook that she and Fred have written; the indignity of being reduced to writing food porn as his only marketable outlet for writing further upsets Fred. On the same day that Sissy and Ross arrive, Pa's first wife (and Fred's biological mother) arrives from China, thanks to the new immigration laws that allowed Chinese women to immigrate to the USA to join their husbands. The arrival of "China Mama" creates conflict between Pa and his current wife, Hyacinth, who feels betrayed by his decision to bring his first wife over after he had promised not to and by the fact that she herself had risked losing her citizenship by marrying Pa. It also becomes clear that Pa wants to split the family in two as he nears the end of his life, favoring his "Chinese" family over his "American" one.(cited from wikipedia)
Review
From The New York Times, the critics wrote "The year of the Dragon barges through comfortable stereotypes of the Asian American— the quiet, hardworking contented character who keeps to himself, rarely bothering white community. It is not an ‘easy’ play. The language is frequently strong, and the bitterness, even when wrapped in some very funny comedy, is unrelenting. … But as a portrait of Asian American’s furious struggle for identity, the play is a searing statement, a powerful cry. ”
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