National Asian American Theatre Festival Reviews - Page 1

From the Ashes
reviewed by Robert Attenweiler

Sometimes it's good to pull something off the street. Appearing as part of the National Asian American Theater Festival, Minneapolis-based Pangea World Theater's production of From The Ashes, written by Meena Natarajan, draws on the playwright's experience with street theatre in India to break down the separation between audience and performer. What's wonderful about this play is that, at it's best, it is quite successful in making the audience feel a part of the diverse cultural community represented on stage.

The play is only very loosely narrative, instead relying on strong physical movement and live music. The text is based on a report about the continued effect of 9/11 on immigrants in this country, and alternates between obviously satirical passages (such as the performers handing out flyers that read "Vote For Dumbfeld" during a rally) and the story of Cheche, a young girl played tenderly by Carey Morrison. Cheche, always wanting to see what's around the next corner, leaves home and, in one of the play's more compelling scenes, is called back home by each of the other performers, each in a different language. So, Cheche is the hopeful wanderer in search of a home and, not surprisingly, this hope is shaken throughout her journey.

All the while, the performance is backed by the enthralling taiko drumming of Sara Dejoras. Dejoras (who also plays the flute and maracas) stands powerfully between the two enormous drums creating the rhythmic undercurrent of the play. Combined with the actors' movement, Dejoras's music creates an engaging meditative quality that you can feel shaking through you with each beat of the drum. This, combined with the poetic abstraction of much of the text, kept me both physically and mentally engaged in whichever direction the story flowed.

The play is clearest during its more satirical moments, where well-played humor breaks up the intensity of the play, but its targets are familiar enough to rob them of significant flair. Where the play can really take our imagination in new directions is in the sections involving Cheche and her journey. If the production is successful in drawing us into the community of the play, it does not take full advantage of taking us to places we haven't been before. But it comes enticingly close. Dipankar Mukherjee's direction is smooth and sure and Katie Herron's fine acting solidifies the ensemble.

The call for justice and social action in From The Ashes is a sympathetic one. Should they continue to explore the limits of where they can take the audience after inviting them so effectively in, Natarajan, Mukherjee, and Pangea World Theater will be that much closer to sending that call, with us, back out to the streets.

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U-Hauls, Bridesmaids & Backwards Mountain
reviewed by Nancy Kim

While some romantic relationships may end in histrionics and hurt feelings, the partners in other relationships gradually drift apart and carry forward separately with occasional remembrance of shared memories. The same can be said for artistic relationships, as in the case of longtime creative partners Regie Cabico and Aileen Cho with their rough but bittersweet offering of U-Hauls, Bridesmaids & Backwards Mountain, a selection in this month's first National Asian American Theater Festival.

Cabico and Cho have co-written and performed together many times in the past. They perhaps mined a lot from shared queer and Asian American identities. With their latest presentation, Cabico begins with the disclosure that he and Cho have been both creatively and personally out of touch for a few years. Although U-Hauls... is an attempt to revive their collaboration on stage, the piece feels mostly nostalgic as we re-visit some of their past work on video. Their mock commercials are bawdy, while the videos of past live performances mostly illustrate the obvious enthusiasm and ease that the two performers have shared on stage in former years.

Unfortunately, in the new material, we don't get as much interaction between Cabico and Cho. Instead, they highlight their individual stories with a mix of monologues and sketches. In one monologue, Cho obsessively details her anxieties about her impending marriage, while we spend time with Cabico as he describes moving to a new city and the loneliness of finding love. As award-winning poets, Cabico and Cho showcase some of their evocative verbal talents. They also share a whimsical and sometimes absurd sense of humor as when Cabico dispenses astrological predictions or when Cho finds a unique remedy for her neuroses.

The performers are also very well-supported by actors Charity Cabico, Kerry Huang, Janet S. Kim, and Ng Thanh Nhan in a number of supporting roles.

In the culminating sketch, Cabico and Cho finally share the stage for a parody of the film Brokeback Mountain. They have a lot of fun with each other, and one can't help but wonder if this current production is more for each other: to recapture those familiar feelings of being in a relationship—at least, a creative one.

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Living Dead in Denmark
reviewed by Anthony C.E.Nelson

I'm not sure how I can accurately capture how much I enjoyed Vampire Cowboy's production of Living Dead in Denmark. I suppose "I would like to marry this play" comes as close as anything.

Imagine a mash up of the X-Men, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lord of the Rings, The Rocky Horror Show, zombie movies, lesbian prison movies, and Shakespeare's major tragedies, and you have something of a sense of what Qui Nguyen is going for in this rollicking, action-packed play. Of course, if you're anything like me you stopped reading in the middle of that sentence and went off to buy tickets.

The plot, such as it is, concerns Ophelia, newly resurrected Bionic Woman-style to serve Fortinbras alongside fellow suicides Juliet and Lady Macbeth in a battle against the evil Zombie Lord. Upon this premise, playwright Qui Nguyen has built an intricate web of betrayals, mysteries, and pop-culture references. His script crackles along, and while the plot is mostly an excuse to get us to the next song or fight scene, Nguyen builds in enough wit and the jokes are current enough that we're kept enraptured all the way through.

Director Robert Ross Parker handles the action adroitly, and the fights that Marius Hanford and others have built are truly spectacular set pieces, surpassing anything you're likely to see at the movies this summer. The cast is uniformly strong, but I was particularly impressed by Alexis Black's coy Juliet, and by Maggie McDonald, who takes a role as a slang-speaking Puck that could be cliché and turns it into a sly combination of Gollum and Jamie Kennedy. If you have a spare hour and 45 minutes, there are precious few ways to spend them that will be more fun than taking in Living Dead in Denmark.

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Tea
reviewed by Kat Chamberlain

We all have our own experience of being a stranger in a strange place. But a case can be made that few face a situation as harsh as marrying into the very country that has just defeated and occupied your own.

That is the case Velina Hasu Houston's Tea, a much savored and produced play, now passionately revived for the National Asian American Theater Festival, makes with both visual and verbal beauty. Himiko, a Japanese war bride who until 1968 has spent 20 years in a Kansas army town, has a hard tale to tell. We are confronted with a shocking mixture of serenity and violence right at the start—wearing a gorgeous kimono, she slowly takes out a shining handgun from her left sleeve, aims at her slender throat, and fires.

Her tragic death brings four other war brides, more acquaintances than friends for various reasons, to her now empty home to have tea. By cleaning Himiko's house and drinking what she calls "tea for the soul, tea to cleanse the spirit," the women attempt to find solace, comfort and, along the way, self and mutual acceptance.

With Himiko's spirit lingering at the tea party, all five women share their own stories—the guilt of leaving a ravished homeland behind, the struggle to face the unknown and the residual wartime hostility, and the heartbreak of losing again the new life they have dreamed much for and managed to build. Even their sense of identity—the Japanese-ness that most of these women hang on to, proves difficult to preserve. "You say we may live the Japanese way wherever we go," recounts one wife of the complaint to her husband.

The five army wives are given instantly recognizable and likable personalities, a wise approach for a play that deals with so many complex issues. Even the snobby and judgmental Atsuko, played by a flavorful Ako, is treated by the script with funny lines and a surprisingly moving confrontation. The most focus is on Himiko, played with gusto by Karen Tsen Lee, who relives and reflects on her brutal life. However, the extreme nature of her hardship—horrors that crumble even a war survivor such as herself—albeit entirely possible and real, puts the other wives' stories somewhat out of balance and may diminish their significance.

But it is the small details of what happens when East meets West that makes this excellent theatre for both cultural study and entertainment. One wife recalls being told by her husband, "You're standing on the toilet! Sit down." So she sits—facing the wall. Houston's use of poetic language and sweeping social commentary offers plenty of intellectual interest. But it is when the wives get down to the Japanese food, the English class, and the hunting rituals of their American husbands that life as these war brides know it is brought vividly in front of our eyes.

Tina Chen's direction is tender and sure, giving loving attention to each and every character, and keeping an unhurried pace for the epic stories to unfold. A very spunky Chizuye, played by Momo Yashima, is the most charismatic of the talented bunch. A tatami (woven straw mat) room and a Japanese maple in front of the house add wonderful ambience to the elegant set designed by Charlie Corcoran. But ultimately it is Houston's words that weave a poignant tapestry of haunting voices, from a past not so much forgotten, but rather never fully acknowledged. The strangers among us turn out to be, as we discover through sipping this steaming cup of tea, very much ourselves. Go taste some. It is indeed, good for the soul.

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The Romance of Magno Rubio
reviewed by Michael Criscuolo

Ma-Yi Theater Company's new revival of Lonnie Carter's The Romance of Magno Rubio is like great jazz: it swings, it has soul, and it blends all of its elements seamlessly. It's also a bit mysterious, which might trip other plays up, but not this one. Why? Because The Romance of Magno Rubio is an optimistically heartfelt work: whatever darkness it contains gets crowded out constantly by the eternal sunshine that Carter believes exists inside everyone. The production's creative team, obviously on the same page with the author, have taken this maxim to heart, and from it created a magical evening of theatre.

The title character is a Filipino migrant farm worker in 1930s California. He longs for love, and sets out to find it through a long-distance correspondence with Clarabelle, an Arkansas woman he meets via a lonely hearts magazine. Magno is unsure about his ability to express his feelings properly (he's not well-educated and English isn't his first language), so he recruits a fellow worker, the bookish and erudite Nick, to write the letters for him. Translating Magno's Filipino dictation into English on paper, Nick turns his friend's love letters into swooning, romantic affairs that would make Cyrano de Bergerac jealous.

Magno's fantasies about his life with Clarabelle fill his heart with hope and joy. But, will his dreams jibe with reality? He will find out soon enough.

Carter's script, partly written in both rhyming verse and Filipino, is poetic and musical. The language has a built-in rhythm that propels the entire production. It swings in both its construction and its ideas, as in this passage spoken by Atoy, the bunkhouse instigator:

On the pout of his lower lip
He arches north; she marches south
A moment, o so fleeting, charged with desire unrequited
Two souls, finally meeting,
One an angel; the other a liar

Or this brief section in which Nick tells Magno the story of Robinson Crusoe:

The world is an island, Magno
We are cast upon the sea of life
hoping to land somewhere in the world
But there is only one island—
and it is in the heart.

Director Loy Arcenas's production is strong and imaginative, giving beautiful realization to Carter's evocative words. He creates a close-knit world of kinship and community between the men, one that fully explains why they frequently erupt into spontaneous jam-like, a cappella song. Later, as the play delves deeper into Magno's romance, Arcenas creates a particularly lovely moment when Magno, dreaming of Clarabelle, dances romantically with a chair as a substitute. Another evocative (and funny) moment comes when Magno sings a Filipino love song for his beloved while a screen with the English lyrics (so we can see what he's really saying) is hoisted behind him. (Special mention to lighting designer James Vermeulen, whose stunning use of sidelight creates whole worlds unto themselves.)

The teamwork and the obvious rapport that Magno Rubio's five-person cast has is undeniable. They influence and inform each other much like a relay team passing the baton from one runner to the next—or a jazz band feeding off the group's collective energy. Jojo Gonzalez and Arthur T. Acuña give endearingly powerhouse performances as Magno and Nick, respectively, with Bernardo Bernardo, Ramon De Ocampo, and Paolo Montalban providing what may be the best support in town right now as their co-workers. All five actors are so thoroughly convincing that one never doubts for a second that they are anyone else but those characters.

The Romance of Magno Rubio is not without its ebbs and flows. And, as with all things poetic and mysterious, there were some parts of it I didn't quite follow. But, that doesn't matter, because I got the overall idea. This is a play that speaks to the heart, from the heart. That is a language we all speak and understand.

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The House of Bernarda Alba
reviewed by David Hilder

It's a deceptive image: Lovely boughs in blossom above a pristine platform of pale wood, surrounded by red petals. It speaks of peace, tranquility—a space for meditation. Only the stiff wooden chairs that flank three sides of the central playing area imply anything unyielding.

What's to come, though, is an intense exploration of one family's entrapment at the hands of a woman who is the very embodiment of Pride. The House of Bernarda Alba, Lorca's tale of repression, wrath, and desire in a hidebound society, packs a powerful emotional punch to this day. Following the death of her second husband, Bernarda Alba declares that her household—herself, her five daughters (the eldest by her wealthy first husband, the rest from the recently deceased), her servants, and her mad mother—will remain in strict mourning for eight years. No one will leave, and only those deemed appropriate by Bernarda will be permitted to visit. The external presence of Pepe el Romano, a villager who is promised to the eldest daughter but also romancing the youngest, creates a simmering sexual tension among all the women in the house. Despite warnings from her peer and servant, Poncia, Bernarda remains convinced that the household is in fine shape, and that there is no trouble ahead. That the story ends in tragedy is both inevitable and devastating.

Chay Yew's adaptation of Lorca's masterwork adds a chorus of women who serve as neighbors in the story and who also provide the sound of rainfall, the clapping and pounding of a flamenco beat, and the crash of horse hooves against the house. It's in the use of the chorus that Yew's version of the play is most successful—one wonders why he didn't take the opportunity of writing this adaptation to do a little judicious trimming, as the text is, particularly to contemporary ears, repetitive (and with no intermission, each word counts). However, he has directed with a fine eye for movement and a keen sense of how to elicit excellent work from his all-female cast. Ching Valdes-Aran is so entirely at home in Bernarda's skin, she seems born to the role—when she issues an order, it's clear why all who hear her obey. Among the five daughters, Carmen M. Herlihy as Martirio and Maile Holck as Magdalena are chief among equals; only Natsuko Ohama's Angustias, the first daughter, sacrifices depth for a whiny petulance that feels too modern for the piece. Particularly impressive is Sophia Skiles as the younger servant, who has better reason to mourn than anyone else in the house.

Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams has adapted an original set design for NAATCO by Sarah Lambert to great effect, and Stephen Petrilli's lighting complements it beautifully. Clint Ramos's costumes—variations on black dresses, with Bernarda's mother dressed in white—are effective and simple. Fabian Obispo's original music adds immeasurably to the proceedings. But the bulk of the credit goes to Yew the director. While he might have held Yew the writer more sternly to task, this production is an excellent showcase of a great play and great actors.

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I Land
reviewed by Martin Denton

The ugly obverse side of the Great American Melting Pot is the leveling of cultures that the Europeans who colonized and founded the USA undertook without regret or hesitation. The indigenous people they found wherever they chose to live in America weren't just wiped out, their civilizations and customs disappeared as well. In our nation's first brief imperialistic phase at the turn of the 20th century, these habits migrated across thousands of miles of ocean to Hawaii, where another culture almost lost its identity to the encroaching mainstream American one.

Keo Woolford tells us in a program note to his important and often electrifying new solo show I Land that the native Hawaiian language had been decimated by the 1950s. (It is now enjoying a renaissance.) Near the end of the show, in a powerful and passionate rhythmic monologue, he says

Oh, thank you king Elvis
For bringing jungle drumming to my life
For killing the pulse of the gods and kings before me....
Thank you
For making it practically impossible
To dispel the images you have imprinted
In the minds of my fellow Americans
Who regard our sacred ritual as irrelevant kitsch

Such a valuable perspective to share with us mainlanders, who, if they're like me, will find themselves forced to admit they've never thought about this subject at all.

I Land is, in fact, all about perspective. Most of its running time traces Woolford's own path toward understanding what it means to be a man; in particular, the proud Hawaiian man that he has become. He shares stories of growing up in Hawaii; learning hula kahiko, the ancient traditional national dance of his homeland; his career in a popular boy band; and his decline, on the mainland, into drugs and despair. In one especially powerful segment, he talks about "Kill Haole Day," when he and some of his buddies terrorized some of the Caucasian kids at their high school—a jolting account of unexpected racism.

The last section of the show is all about the adult Woolford sharing all that he's learned in his life and his aspirations for a "hula nation" where individuality and diversity can be celebrated openly and fully. This part of I Land culminates in Woolford's performance of the hula in traditional costume. It's stunning.

Woolford is an extraordinary dancer—graceful, limber, and deliberate in all of his remarkably detailed moves. He's glorious to watch. He's also a persuasive actor and writer, and if parts of his one-man show are more confessional than absolutely necessary, the cumulative power of this work is undeniable. Woolford has something significant to communicate to his audience, and I know that I'm glad to have heard it.

I Land is very funny in places, and filled with movement and dance (choreography is by Robert Cazimaro, a kumu hula artist, and Rokafella, the hip-hop dance pioneer; it's all spectacularly good). Clint Ramos's set and costume design is simple but tremendously effective; I love the show's backdrop, a huge stylized question mark that sets the stage for the inquiries within and beyond the self that Woolford undertakes in this compelling and necessary play.

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Three Filipino Tenors
reviewed by Kimberly Wadsworth

Tenors are "in." Ever since Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti—the original "Three Tenors"— gave their first concert in 1990, several other such acts have jumped on the bandwagon, including the "Irish Tenors,""Tenor Australis," the "Three Canadian Tenors," the "3 Chinese Tenors," the "Ten Tenors," and even "Three Tenors and a Soprano" (although that feels like cheating, doesn't it?)

East/West Theater's contribution, The Three Filipino Tenors, doesn't stray far from the established formula—a joint concert given by three men (Antoine Reynaldo Diel, Randy Guiaya, and Lito Villareal), with a music selection ranging from classical pieces to Broadway to pop, and a little patter in between. Moreover, while the trio does perform two traditional Tagalog numbers, and each makes intermittent mention of their childhoods in the Philippines, the emphasis for the evening still seems to be solidly on the "Tenors" part of the title and less on the "Filipino" part. I wish I'd heard a little more about each singer—in particular, Villareal relates a tantalizingly brief story about how he was born partially deaf until a miraculous faith healing from a missionary saved his hearing, and presumably enabled him to pursue music. But Villareal doesn't elaborate, and a glimpse is all we get. So, it's not too different from many of the other evenings with three tenors out there.

But one thing these particular three tenors have going for them is chemistry—the trio clearly love working together. I was surprised to learn that they've only been singing together for a year, since a benefit concert for EWP in 2006; they have the kind of rapport and rhythm, and good-natured joshing, that you find among old friends who've known each other for years. It's a rapport that director Tim Dang may want to trust a little more; some of the patter in between the numbers does come off as "scripted" and reliant on corny jokes, but at times the three let themselves really joke around with each other—after the dreadlocked Diel introduced their pop medley by quipping that it was their "American Idol" sequence, Villareal grinned impishly and called him "Sanjaya"—and it's refreshingly fun to watch.

The joshing around carries over to some of the music as well, and wisely so in one number; the three take on one of the more famous entries in the tenors' songbook, the Turnandot aria "Nessun Dorma"—but instead of treating it seriously, they perform with a wink, hamming things up with Dramatic Gestures and the occasional theatrical Mopping Of The Brow. It was just enough sass to puncture the reverence with which others treat this number, and coming as early as it does in the evening, it sets a fun tone. It also underscores how much the team just plain loves singing as well—they take such standards as "Danny Boy" fairly seriously, but in their finale medley, which includes pop hits like "Respect" and "I Will Survive," their enthusiasm was infectious, with the three spontaneously breaking out into Motown-inspired dancing at one point.

These Three Filipino Tenors don't necessarily break new ground in what's becoming a genre, but that's not really what they set out to do anyway—they're just having fun. And it shows.

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The Caste & The Furious: Tokyo Drift
reviewed by Richard Hinojosa

Good comedy comes from a unique perspective. Some of the best comedians are those that have had to struggle through life and are just angry enough about that to turn it into comedy. Stir Friday Night has this sort of unique perspective, all of them growing up Asian American, and they have converted their combined experiences into some really funny material.

Their show The Caste and the Furious is set up in a sketch comedy format but several of the scenes go beyond that. There are, for example, several musical numbers and a couple of bits that are a little more serious; most of it is very thought-provoking. Stir Friday Night unabashedly and directly tackles racial stereotypes of Asians and they do it with flair and irony. One of my favorites in this category was a rapping, gangsta character who is pleading for Asian representation in American Pop Culture. The character feels forced to act like an African American just to get noticed. There are also songs that are as poignant as they are funny, such as "Yellow Fever" (akin to jungle fever) and the suave and loungy "I Want A White Girl" number.

SFN uses irony as a mighty sword. There is a brilliant scene about a newlywed couple, one the personification of North Korea and the other South, who are finding it difficult to work out there differences on their wedding night. The characterizations by the actors in the scene are hilarious and dead-on. The irony of these two lovers who want to be together but due to their deep-seated fear and misunderstanding of each other is felt like a slashing sword.

SFN also uses physical comedy and a few puppet props. They open with a hilarious bit about competitive in-line skaters whose legs are sort of Bunraku-operated puppet legs, giving them the freedom to do the craziest, twisty things as the race and jump and fly. They go back and forth from slow motion to normal speed giving the action a sort of cartoon-like look and appeal. There's also a fantastic physical comedy bit about fighting over the last donut. SNF is overall very funny and I liked the writing in general though there are several jokes that I felt could have been pushed even further. I think they may explore some of their ending jokes with a little improv. Still, the cast is polished and always on point.

The cast (or caste if you will)—Carl Anderson, Melissa Canciller, Neal Dandade, Sun Hong, Sayjal Joshi, Jen Liu, and Steven Yeun—make this show the best it can be. They create distinct, funny characters and many of them have lovely singing voices. They make bold statements regarding racial stereotypes and they do it in a very funny and enormously entertaining show. They hail from Chicago so catch them here in NYC while you can.

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Big Head / Replaced Rituals
reviewed by Nicole Watson

An excerpt from Replaced Rituals was presented the same evening as Denise Uyehara's Big Head, a short solo performance exploring hatred and violence in Los Angeles. Pallabi Chakravorty's Replaced Rituals is a beautiful and multi-layered dance performance. Performing along with two other dancers, Diditi Mitra and Naina Roychowdhury, Chakravroty combines elements from Indian dances with gestures from daily rituals such as eating, looking in the mirror, and fixing her hair. Using live music and text taken from sources such as Toni Morrison's Beloved, the piece suggests that rituals, while rooted in age-old traditions are continually re-recreated and transformed in one's present day experience.

What makes the piece particularly provoking is Chakravorty's interest in the traditions that are developed from the conditions of migration and dislocation. The dance is captivating and definitely provides food for thought. In one of the voiceovers, we hear, "those who have no memory have lost a part of themselves." Chakravorty's performance makes sure that those pieces are found. The only problem with the piece was that it was only an excerpt of a larger work. It was not clear whether we were watching the first 20 minutes of the piece, or various sections of the piece. Regardless, there is no doubt that the entire piece will be worth watching.

After a brief pause, Denise Uyehara performed her one woman piece Big Head. The piece begins with the fourth grade version of herself, impressing the audience with her report on the Pledge of Allegiance. At one point, little Denise invites the entire audience to recite the pledge with her. Denise's older self is not so earnest in her allegiance as current events suggest that patriotism can lead to violence. Uyehara asks, "what does it take to hate a body," as a claymation body is mangled and bruised on a video screen behind her. The grey body twists and morphs as Denise narrates recent incidents of violence. Big Head also includes excerpts taken from interviews and news reports.

Overall the evening offered two powerful performances by two phenomenal women.

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Undesirable Elements
reviewed by Robin Rothstein

The Pregones Theater is an intimate gem of a space in the Bronx that possesses the kind of warmth and class that portends the quality of the work you are likely to see there. Though the theatre still has some renovating ahead, the welcoming vibe that this venue already exudes would make most downtown theatre companies salivate. It is in this gracious environment that Undesirable Elements, an appealing theatrical work, took up residence last week as part of the first National Asian American Theater Festival.

Written and directed by Ping Chong and Sara Michelle Zatz in collaboration with the performers, and produced by New York City-based Ping Chong & Company, Undesirable Elements is, according to production notes, "an ongoing series of community-specific oral history theater works examining the lives of people born in one culture, but currently living in another, either by choice or circumstance." Somewhat reminiscent of The Exonerated in its use of interview-based material and its concert-reading performance style, this incarnation of Undesirable Elements, a series that has been in existence since 1992, presents the life stories of six Asian Americans whose backgrounds include Afghan, Korean, Indian, Filipino, Chinese, and Tongan. Undesirable Elements is structured within a chronological context, beginning with the six performers briefly pointing up relevant moments in immigrant history in America, followed by the recounting of their own varied personal histories and struggles as Asian Americans through to present day. The performers deliver their narratives in an honest, plain-speaking style, and each story is captivating from nearly start to finish, the exception being a brief section where the performers express what they like most about the countries of their heritage. This portion of the piece, which feels like a lingering vestige of their creative process, comes across as flat and inorganic compared to the rest of the piece; however this is only a small flaw.

Chong masterfully directs his dynamic sextet with empathy and humor, weaving their individual narratives throughout and showing how feelings of loneliness and displacement among very different people paradoxically create a common bond. Synchronous clapping at specific moments propels the piece forward from one section to the next, and the simple, elegant lighting by Brant Thomas Murray facilitates a feeling of intimacy. The staging is also smart, with the performers at times moving in a circle to new seats while music plays in the background. Yet in this version of musical chairs none of the performers is ever left without a place after the music stops, which seems to be the point—we all indeed have a meaningful and essential place in the world, we just have to discover it.

It is a shame that Undesirable Elements had such a limited presentation, as there are many people, Asian American and otherwise, who would likely enjoy and connect with this piece, as did this third-generation American of Eastern European descent. Hopefully, someone like Alan Buchman of Culture Project, or a similar entity, will also connect with Undesirable Elements and give it the run and exposure it deserves.

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Korean Badass
reviewed by Mark DeFrancis

Korean Badass is both Korean and Badass. This one-man show, part of the National Asian American Theatre Festival, is two hours of furious theatre powered solely by the dynamo that is Stevie Lee Saxon. One of the hardest things for an actor to do is handle a solo performance, but Saxon goes the distance and unveils a complex biography that is as poignant and moving as it is badass.

Saxon wastes no time getting to it. He enters like a prizefighter, warms up to his soundtrack, and launches into a high-paced monologue, which is a collage of tough-talking, hell-for-leather catch phrases with a little paraphrased Shakespeare for color. Saxon, it seems, dreams of becoming the Korean Steve McQueen. This stems from his inability to find a suitable Asian actor as a role model and his desire to be defined by his talent, not his ethnicity. In one of my favorite scenes, Saxon dispels many previous Asian performers as nothing but demeaning stereotypes. The piece has a lot to say about show business, personal branding, and the sacrifices artists make to follow their craft.

Saxon adds another color when he introduces his family history into the mix. Here we see him trying to fight a tradition that disapproves of his choice to be an actor, culminating in a powerful scene between him and his father.

Half the fun of a one-man show is watching an actor challenge himself. Saxon covers this piece with a diverse array of characters and tones and rarely lets his concentration lapse. Director Jeannie Barroga cannot go without mention for crafting a fine performance. Sadly, the ambitious technical aspects of the show, which involve video, lights, and sound, seemed off-pace with Saxon's performance. I chalk that up to opening night and I'm sure it will be worked out by the time you see it.

And you should see it. Get to Korean Badass so that Stevie Lee Saxon can be the next Steve McQueen and we can all enjoy his remake of Bullet.

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