Golden Child (play)

Last updated
Golden Child
Written by David Henry Hwang
CharactersEng Siu-Yong
Andrew Kwong
Eng Tieng-Bin
Elizabeth Kwong
Eng Eling
Reverend Anthony Baines
Eng Luan
Eng Ahn and others
Date premieredNovember 19, 1996
Place premiered Public Theater
New York City, New York
Original languageEnglish
SubjectReligion/Family
GenreDrama
SettingManhattan and Eng Tieng-Bin's home village near Amoy, in Southeast China. The Present, Winter 1918 and Spring 1919.

Golden Child is a play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Produced off-Broadway in 1996, it was produced on Broadway in 1998. It explores an early twentieth-century Chinese family being faced with Westernization. It was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.

Contents

Productions

Golden Child is a co-production with the South Coast Repertory, (Costa Mesa, California) and the Public Theater. The play premiered Off-Broadway on November 19, 1996, at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, closing on December 8, 1996. It was directed by James Lapine, with Tsai Chin and Jodi Long. [1] The production won the 1996-1997 Obie Awards: Performance, Tsai Chin, and Playwriting, David Henry Hwang.

The play was revised for the production at the South Coast Repertory, where it ran in January 1997, again directed by Lapine. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times,

"Hwang has improved it--if not miraculously, than at least discernibly. He has added cogency to the short framing scenes that begin and end the story, and several other key scenes are clearer and stronger. As a result, "Golden Child" is more riveting and more moving, though it continues to suffer in part from over-explanation." [2]

The play next had engagements at the Singapore Repertory Theatre in January 1998, and the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco in February 1998 to March 15, 1998. [3]

The play premiered on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on April 2, 1998, and closed on May 31, 1998. [4] This production was also directed by Lapine, with Randall Duk Kim and Ming-Na Wen in addition to Long. It was nominated for the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play, as well as Costume Design (Play or Musical) (Martin Pakledinaz) and Featured Actress in a Play (Julyana Soelistyo). [5]

East West Players, whom Hwang was a frequent collaborator with, also hosted the play as a part of their 1999–2000 season. [6]

An Off-Broadway revival opened on November 13, 2012, as part of a season of Hwang's works at the Signature Theatre. [7] This production was directed by Leigh Silverman and featured Annie Q., Jennifer Lim, Julyana Soelistyo, and Greg Watanabe.

It is published by Theatre Communications Group and also in an acting edition published by Dramatists Play Service.

Plot

In the present, Andrew Kwong is visited in his sleep by his dead grandmother, Eng Ahn. Andrew's wife Elizabeth is pregnant and Andrew is conflicted about it.

Ahn tells him about his great-grandfather, Eng Tieng-Bin, who was a Chinese businessman in 1918. After spending time in the Philippines with Westerners, Tieng-Bin desires a modern life. He has returned to his home in rural China, where he has three wives—Eng Siu-Yong, Eng Luan, and Eng Eling—and a daughter, Eng Ahn, who calls herself the "Golden Child." Tieng-Bin, who has been meeting with a Christian missionary, Rev. Anthony Baines, wishes to convert to Christianity and adopt a more Westernized lifestyle, but that puts him at odds against his family and traditions. After arguing about it with his wives, Tieng-Bin orders that Ahn's feet be unbound, considering it to be a backward and inhumane practice.

In Act II, Tieng-Ban has Ahn and his wives meeting with Rev. Baines to learn about Christianity. Eng Luan embraces the religion as she hopes to become Tieng-Ban's only wife when he converts and has to choose among the three. Tieng-Bin feels most fondly for Eling, who is now pregnant, but she is conflicted about leaving the old traditions behind. Siu-Yong, addicted to opium, rejects Tieng-Bin's wishes to convert, and has Ahn spy on her husband's sessions with the reverend. When Tieng-Bin learns this, he destroys Siu-Yong's family altar. Luan and Eling are baptized along with Tieng-Bin, but Siu-Yong dies of an opium overdose. The ghost of Siu-Yong visits Eling and convinces her she will never be able to become fully Western like Tieng-Bin wants, and so Eling sacrifices herself and her unborn child. Ahn confronts a devastated Tieng-Bin and encourages him to continue pursuing a Western life for the benefit of the family.

Back in the present, Andrew is afraid he'll fail as a father and husband like Tieng-Bin, but Ahn explains that despite his suffering, Tieng-Bin did bring his family into the future. His actions allowed her to come to America, become educated, choose her own husband and be a Christian. Andrew resolves to write about his family history and finally starts to feel a fondness for his unborn child. [8]

Critical reception

The reviewer of the 2012 Off-Broadway production wrote: " 'Golden Child' is loosely based on the story of Hwang's Chinese great-grandfather's conversion to Christianity in the early years of the 20th century. Written with insight, compassion, and a sharp eye for the unintended consequences of clashing cultures, 'Golden Child' is one of Hwang's best works, as entertaining as it is thought-provoking... Under Leigh Silverman's perceptive direction, the cast does superb ensemble work. [9]

Related Research Articles

<i>Into the Woods</i> 1987 musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

Into the Woods is a 1987 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Henry Hwang</span> American playwright

David Henry Hwang is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays FOB, Golden Child, and Yellow Face. Three of his works—M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power—have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Margulies</span> American playwright

Donald Margulies is an American playwright and academic. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Dinner with Friends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Vogel</span> American playwright

Paula Vogel is an American playwright who received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play How I Learned to Drive. A longtime teacher, Vogel spent the bulk of her academic career – from 1984 to 2008 – at Brown University, where she served as Adele Kellenberg Seaver Professor in Creative Writing, oversaw its playwriting program, and helped found the Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium. From 2008 to 2012, Vogel was Eugene O'Neill Professor of Playwriting and department chair at the Yale School of Drama, as well as playwright in residence at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Lapine</span> American stage director and librettist

James Elliot Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucille Lortel</span> American actress

Lucille Lortel was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for Tony Awards: As Is by William M. Hoffman, Angels Fall by Lanford Wilson, Blood Knot by Athol Fugard, Mbongeni Ngema's Sarafina!, and A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing. She also produced Marc Blitzstein's adaptation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, a production which ran for seven years and according to The New York Times "caused such a sensation that it...put Off-Broadway on the map."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsai Chin (actress)</span> Chinese actress (born 1933)

Tsai Chin is a Chinese actress, singer, director, teacher, and author best known in the United States for her role as Auntie Lindo in the film The Joy Luck Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Rubinstein</span> American actor, composer, director (b. 1946)

John Rubinstein is an American actor, composer and director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marshall W. Mason</span>

Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, educator, and writer. Mason founded the Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was artistic director of the company for 18 years (1969–1987). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1983. In 2016, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.

<i>FOB</i> (play) 1980 David Henry Hwang play

FOB is a 1980 Obie Award-winning play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. His first play, it depicts the contrasts and conflicts between established Asian Americans and "fresh off the boat" (FOB) newcomer immigrants.

<i>Falsettos</i> 1992 musical by William Finn and James Lapine

Falsettos is a sung-through musical with a book by William Finn and James Lapine, and music and lyrics by Finn. The musical consists of March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990), the last two installments in a trio of one-act musicals that premiered off-Broadway. The story centers on Marvin, who has left his wife to be with a male lover, Whizzer, and struggles to keep his family together. Much of the first act explores the impact his relationship with Whizzer has had on his family. The second act explores family dynamics that evolve as he and his ex-wife plan his son's bar mitzvah. Central to the musical are the themes of Jewish identity, gender roles, and gay life in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It also deals with the topic of the AIDS epidemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Jue</span> American actor and singer (born 1963)

Francis Jue is an American actor and singer. Jue is known for his performances on Broadway, in national tours, Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area and at The Muny in St. Louis. His roles in plays and musicals range from Shakespeare to Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Hwang. He is also known for his recurring role on the TV series Madam Secretary (2014–2019).

<i>Dirty Blonde</i> (play) Play written by Claudia Shear

Dirty Blonde is a play by Claudia Shear. The play ran Off-Broadway and on Broadway in 2000. It involves two fans of Mae West who discover their shared passion for her, and for each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norm Lewis</span> American actor, singer

Norm Lewis is an American actor and baritone singer. He has appeared in Europe, on Broadway, in film, television, recordings and regional theatre. Lewis was the second African-American actor after Robert Guillaume to perform in the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and the first one to do so in the Broadway production. In 2023, he reprised the role in the show's sequel, Love Never Dies, in London's West End.

The Dance and the Railroad is a 1981 play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. His second play, it depicts a strike in a coolie railroad labor camp in the mid-nineteenth century American West. The play premiered as part of a commission by the New Federal Theatre in 1981. It had its professional debut on July 16, 1981 Off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater. It was directed by John Lone, with Lone and Tzi Ma in the cast.

Kim Crosby is an American singer and musical theatre actress. She is best known as the original Cinderella in the Sondheim–Lapine musical Into the Woods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Repertory Theatre</span> Off-Brodway theatre

Derek McLane is an American set designer for theatre, opera, and television. He graduated with a BA from Harvard College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Julyana Soelistyo is an American stage and film actress who, in 1998, was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Golden Child.

Marylouise Burke is an American actress. Her roles have included the 2004 Alexander Payne film Sideways, in which she played Phyliis, the mother of the lead character. On stage, she has appeared off-Broadway in Fuddy Meers in 1999, winning the Drama Desk Award for Featured Actress in a Play, and in Kimberly Akimbo in 2003, receiving a Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actress in a Play nomination. She also played the role of Jack's mother in the 2002 Broadway revival of Into the Woods.

References

  1. ↑ "Golden Child 1996" lortel.org, accessed October 11, 2015
  2. ↑ Winer, Laurie. "After Some Smart Revisions, Hwang's 'Golden Child' Gains Luster" Los Angeles Times, January 13, 1997
  3. ↑ Lefkowitz, David and Glaser, Blair. "Hwang's 'Golden Child ' Opens Pre-B'way Engagement in Singapore Jan. 13" Playbill, January 12, 1998
  4. ↑ "Golden Child Broadway" ibdb.com, accessed October 11, 2015
  5. ↑ " Golden Child Broadway Production" playbillvault.com, accessed October 11, 2015
  6. ↑ Wood, Ximón. "Production History & Archive". East West Players. Retrieved 2019-07-12.
  7. ↑ Golden Child lortel.org
  8. ↑ Hwang, David Henry (1998). Golden Child. New York: Theatre Communications Group. ISBN   1559361581.
  9. ↑ Haagensen, Erik. "'Golden Child' Gets First-Rate Revival at Signature Theatre" backstage.com, November 13, 2012
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.