Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  FOB - (1980)

  ACT I

  ACT II

  THE DANCE AND THE RAILROAD - (1981)

  Scene One

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  Scene Four

  Scene Five

  FAMILY DEVOTIONS - (1981)

  ACT I

  ACT II

  THE SOUND OF A VOICE - (1983)

  Scene One

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  Scene Four

  Scene Five

  Scene Six

  Scene Seven

  Scene Eight

  Scene Nine

  THE HOUSE OF SLEEPING BEAUTIES - (1983)

  Scene One

  Scene Two

  Scene Three

  Scene Four

  THE VOYAGE - (1992)

  ACT I

  ACT II

  ACT III

  BONDAGE - (1992)

  TRYING TO FIND CHINATOWN - (1996)

  Copyright Page

  FOB

  (1980)

  For the warriors of my family

  Production History

  FOB received its premiere at the Stanford Asian American Theatre Project (Nancy Takahashi, Producer) in Palo Alto, California, on March 2, 1979. It was directed by David Henry Hwang; the assistant director was Randall Tong; the set design was by George Prince; the costume design was by Kathy Ko and the lighting design was by Roger Tang. The cast was as follows:

  DALE Loren Fong

  GRACE Hope Nakamura

  STEVE David Pating

  The play was then developed at the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference (Lloyd Richards, Artistic Director) in Waterford, Connecticut, in July 1979. It was directed by Robert Alan Ackerman. The cast was as follows:

  DALE Calvin Jung

  GRACE Ginny Yang

  STEVE Ernest Abuba

  FOB opened at The Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival (Joseph Papp, Producer), in New York City on June 8, 1980. It was directed by Mako; the assistant director was David Oyama; the set design was by Akira Yoshimura and James E. Mayo; the costume design was by Susan Hum; the lighting design was by Victor En Yu Tan; the choreography was by John Lone; the music was by Lucia Hwong; and the stage manager was Ruth Kreshka. There were also two onstage stage managers, Willy Corpus and Tzi Ma, as well as an onstage musician, Lucia Hwong, in this production. The cast was as follows:

  DALE Calvin Jung

  GRACE Ginny Yang

  STEVE John Lone

  Characters

  DALE, a second-generation American of Chinese descent, early twenties.

  GRACE, Dale’s cousin, a first-generation Chinese-American, early twenties.

  STEVE, Grace’s friend, a Chinese newcomer, early twenties.

  Place

  The back room of a small Chinese restaurant in Torrance, California.

  Time

  1980.

  ACT I, Scene One: late afternoon. Scene Two: a few minutes later.

  ACT II: after dinner.

  Definitions

  chong you bing is a type of Chinese pancake, a Northern Chinese appetizer often made with dough and scallions, with a consistency similar to that of pita bread.

  da dao and mao are two swords, the traditional weapons of Gwan Gung and Fa Mu Lan, respectively.

  Gung Gung means “grandfather.”

  Mei Guo means “beautiful country” and is a Chinese term for America.

  Playwright’s Note

  The roots of FOB are thoroughly American. The play began when a sketch I was writing about a limousine trip through Westwood, California, was invaded by two figures from American literature: Fa Mu Lan, the girl who takes her father’s place in battle, from Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Gwan Gung, the god of fighters and writers, from Frank Chin’s Gee, Pop!

  These books testify to the existence of an Asian-American literary tradition. Japanese-Americans, for instance, wrote plays in American concentration camps during World War II. Earlier, with the emergence of the railroads, came regular performances of Cantonese operas featuring Gwan Gung, the adopted god of Chinese America.

  Prologue

  Lights up on a blackboard. Dale enters, dressed in preppie clothes. The blackboard is the type which can flip around so both sides can be used. Dale lectures like a university professor, using the board to illustrate his points.

  DALE: F-O-B. Fresh Off the Boat. FOB. What words can you think of that characterize the FOB? Clumsy, ugly, greasy FOB. Loud, stupid, four-eyed FOB. Big feet. Horny. Like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Very good. A literary reference. High-water pants. Floods, to be exact. Someone you wouldn’t want your sister to marry. If you are a sister, someone you wouldn’t want to marry. That assumes we’re talking about boy FOBs, of course. But girl FOBs aren’t really as... FOBish. Boy FOBs are the worst, the... pits. They are the sworn enemies of all ABC—oh, that’s “American-Born Chinese”—of all ABC girls. Before an ABC girl will be seen on a Friday night with a boy FOB in Westwood, she would rather burn off her face.

  (He flips around the board. On the other side is written: “1. Where to Find FOBs. 2. How to Spot a FOB. ”)

  FOBs can be found in great numbers almost anyplace you happen to be, but there are some locations where they cluster in particularly large swarms. Community colleges, Chinese club discos, Asian sororities, Asian fraternities, Oriental churches, shopping malls and, of course, Bee Gee concerts. How can you spot a FOB? Look out! If you can’t answer that, you might be one.

  (He flips back the board, reviews) F-O-B. Fresh Off the Boat. FOB. Clumsy, ugly, greasy FOB. Loud, stupid, four-eyed FOB. Big feet. Horny. Like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Floods. Like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. F-O-B. Fresh Off the Boat. FOB.

  (Lights fade to black. We hear American pop music, preferably funk, rhythm and blues, or disco.)

  ACT I

  Scene One

  Late afternoon. The back room of a small Chinese restaurant in Torrance, California. Single table, with a tablecloth; various chairs, supplies. One door leads outside, a back exit; another leads to the kitchen . Lights up on Grace, at the table. The music is coming from a small radio. On the table is a small, partially wrapped box and a huge blob of discarded Scotch tape. As Grace tries to wrap the box, we see what has been happening: the tape she’s using is stuck in the dispenser; so, in order to pull it out, she must tug so hard that an unusable quantity of tape is dispensed. Steve enters from the back door, unnoticed by Grace. He stands, waiting to catch her eye, tries to speak, but his voice is drowned out by the music. He is dressed in a stylish summer outfit.

  GRACE: Aaaai-ya!

  STEVE: Hey!

  (No response; he turns off the music.)

  GRACE: Huh? Look. Out of tape.

  STEVE (In Chinese): Yeah.

  GRACE: One whole roll. You know how much of it got on here? Look. That much. That’s all.

  STEVE (In Chinese): Yeah. Do you serve chong you bing today?

  GRACE (Picking up box) : Could’ve skipped the wrapping paper, just covered it with tape.

  STEVE (In Chinese): Excuse me!

  GRACE: Yeah? (Pause) You wouldn’t have any on you, would ya?

  STEVE (Speaking English from now onward): Sorry? No. I don’t have bing. I want to buy bing.

  GRACE: Not bing! Tape. Have you got any tape?

  STEVE: Tape? Of course I don’t have tape.

  GRACE: Just checking.

  STEVE: Do you have any bing?

  (Pause.)
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  GRACE: Look, we’re closed ’til five...

  STEVE: Idiot girl.

  GRACE: Why don’t you take a menu?

  STEVE: I want you to tell me!

  (Pause.)

  GRACE (Ignoring Steve): Working in a Chinese restaurant, you learn to deal with obnoxious customers.

  STEVE: Hey! You!

  GRACE: If the customer’s Chinese, you insult them by giving forks.

  STEVE: I said I want you to tell me!

  GRACE: If the customer’s Anglo, you starve them by not giving forks.

  STEVE: You serve bing or not?

  GRACE: But it’s always easy just to dump whatever happens to be in your hands at the moment.

  (She sticks the tape blob on Steve’s face.)

  STEVE: I suggest you answer my question at once!

  GRACE: And I suggest you grab a menu and start doing things for yourself. Look, I’ll get you one, even. How’s that?

  STEVE: I want it from your mouth!

  GRACE: Sorry. We don’t keep ’em there.

  STEVE: If I say they are there, they are there. (He grabs her box)

  GRACE: What—what’re you doing? Give that back to me!

  (They parry around the table.)

  STEVE: Aaaah! Now it’s different, isn’t it? Now you’re listening to me.

  GRACE: ’Scuse me, but you really are an asshole, you know that? Who do you think you are?

  STEVE: What are you asking me? Who I am?

  GRACE: Yes. You take it easy with that, hear?

  STEVE: You ask who I am?

  GRACE: One more second and I’m gonna call the cops.

  STEVE: Very well, I will tell you.

  (She picks up the phone. He slams it down.)

  I said, I’ll tell you.

  GRACE: If this is how you go around meeting people, I think it’s pretty screwed.

  STEVE: Silence! I am Gwan Gung! God of warriors, writers and prostitutes!

  (Pause.)

  GRACE: Bullshit!

  STEVE: What?

  GRACE: Bullshit! Bull-shit! You are not Gwan Gung. And gimme back my box.

  STEVE: I am Gwan Gung. Perhaps we should see what you have in here.

  GRACE: Don’t open that! (Beat) You don’t look like Gwan Gung. Gwan Gung is a warrior.

  STEVE: I am a warrior!

  GRACE: Yeah? Why are you so scrawny, then? You wouldn’t last a day in battle.

  STEVE: My credit! Many a larger man has been humiliated by the strength in one of my size.

  GRACE: Tell me, then. Tell me, if you are Gwan Gung. Tell me of your battles. Of one battle. Of Gwan Gung’s favorite battle.

  STEVE: Very well. Here is a living memory: one day, Gwan Gung woke up and saw the ring of fire around the sun and decided, “This is a good day to slay villagers.” So he got up, washed himself and looked over a map of the Three Kingdoms to decide where first to go. For those were days of rebellion and falling empires, so opportunity to slay was abundant. But planned slaughter required an order and restraint which soon became tedious. So Gwan Gung decided a change was in order. He called for his tailor, who he asked to make a beautiful blindfold of layered silk, fine enough to be weightless, yet thick enough to blind the wearer completely. The tailor complied, and soon produced a perfect piece of red silk, exactly suited to Gwan Gung’s demands. In gratitude, Gwan Gung stayed the tailor’s execution sentence. He then put on his blindfold, pulled out his sword, and began passing over the land, swiping at whatever got in his path. You see, Gwan Gung figured there was so much revenge and so much evil in those days that he could slay at random and still stand a good chance of fulfilling justice. This worked very well until his sword, in its blind fury, hit upon an old and irritable atom bomb.

  (Grace catches Steve, takes back the box.)

  GRACE: Ha! Some Gwan Gung you are! Some warrior you are! You can’t even protect a tiny box from the grasp of a woman! How could you have shielded your big head in battle?

  STEVE: Shield! Shield! I still go to battle!

  GRACE: Only your head goes to battle, ’cause only your head is Gwan Gung.

  (Pause.)

  STEVE: You made me think of you as a quiet listener. A good trick. What is your name?

  GRACE: You can call me “The Woman Who Has Defeated Gwan Gung,” if that’s really who you are.

  STEVE: Very well. But that name will change before long.

  GRACE: That story you told—that wasn’t a Gwan Gung story.

  STEVE: What—you think you know all of my adventures through stories? All the books in the world couldn’t record the life of one man, let alone a god. Now—do you serve bing?

  GRACE: I won the battle; you go look yourself. There.

  STEVE: You working here?

  GRACE: Part-time. It’s my father’s place. I’m also in school.

  STEVE: School? University?

  GRACE: Yeah. UCLA.

  STEVE: Excellent. I have also come to America for school.

  GRACE: Well, what use would Gwan Gung have for school?

  STEVE: Wisdom. Wisdom makes a warrior stronger.

  GRACE: Pretty good. If you are Gwan Gung, you’re not the dumb jock I was expecting. Got a lot to learn about school, though.

  STEVE: Expecting? You were expecting me?

  GRACE (Quickly): No, no. I meant, what I expected from the stories.

  STEVE: Tell me, how do people think of Gwan Gung in America? Do they shout my name while rushing into battle, or is it too sacred to be used in such ostentatious display?

  GRACE: Uh—no.

  STEVE: No—what? I didn’t ask a “no” question.

  GRACE: What I mean is, neither. They don’t do either of those.

  STEVE: Not good. The name of Gwan Gung has been restricted for the use of leaders only?

  GRACE: Uh—no. I think you better sit down.

  STEVE: This is very scandalous. How are the people to take my strength? Gwan Gung might as well not exist, for all they know.

  GRACE: You got it.

  STEVE: I got what? You seem to be having trouble making your answers fit my questions.

  GRACE: No, I think you’re having trouble making your questions fit my answers.

  STEVE: What is this nonsense? Speak clearly, or don’t speak at all.

  GRACE: Speak clearly?

  STEVE: Yes. Like a warrior.

  GRACE: Well, you see, Gwan Gung, god of warriors, writers and prostitutes, no one gives a wipe about you ’round here. You’re dead.

  (Pause.)

  STEVE: You... you make me laugh.

  GRACE: You died way back... hell, no one even noticed when you died—that’s how bad off your PR was. You died and no one even missed a burp.

  STEVE: You lie! The name of Gwan Gung must be feared around the world—you jeopardize your health with such remarks. (Pause) You—you have heard of me, I see. How can you say—?

  GRACE: Oh, I just study it a lot—Chinese-American history, I mean.

  STEVE: Ah. In the schools, in the universities, where new leaders are born, they study my ways.

  GRACE: Well, fifteen of us do.

  STEVE: Fifteen. Fifteen of the brightest, of the most promising?

  GRACE: One wants to be a dental technician.

  STEVE: A man studies Gwan Gung in order to clean teeth?

  GRACE: There’s also a middle-aged woman that’s kinda bored with her kids.

  STEVE: I refuse—I don’t believe you—your stories. You’re just angry at me for treating you like a servant. You’re trying to sap my faith. The people—the people outside—they know me—they know the deeds of Gwan Gung.

  GRACE: Check it out yourself.

  STEVE: Very well. You will learn—learn not to test the spirit of Gwan Gung.

  (Steve exits. Grace picks up the box. She studies it.)

  GRACE: Fa Mu Lan sits and waits. She learns to be still while the emperors, the dynasties, the foreign lands flow past, unaware of her slender form, thinking it a tree in the woods, a statue to a goddess l
ong abandoned by her people. But Fa Mu Lan, the Woman Warrior, is not ashamed. She knows that one who can exist without movement while the ages pass is the one to whom no victory can be denied. It is training, to wait. And Fa Mu Lan, the Woman Warrior, must train, for she is no goddess, but girl—girl who takes her father’s place in battle. No goddess, but woman—warrior-woman (She breaks through the box’s wrapping, reaches in and pulls out another box, beautifully wrapped and ribboned)—and ghost. (She puts the new box on a shelf, goes to the phone, dials) Hi, Dale? Hi, this is Grace... Pretty good. How’bout you?... Good, good. Hey, listen, I’m sorry to ask you at the last minute and everything, but are you doing anything tonight?... Are you sure?... Oh, good. Would you like to go out with me and some of my friends?... Just out to dinner, then maybe we were thinking of going to a movie or something... Oh, good ... Are you sure? . . . Yeah, okay. Um, we’re all going to meet at the restaurant... No, our restaurant . . . right—as soon as possible. Okay, good... I’m really glad that you’re coming. Sorry it’s such short notice. Okay. Bye, now... Huh? Frank? Oh, okay. (Pause) Hi, Frank... Pretty good... Yeah?... No, I don’t think so ... Yeah… No, I’m sorry, I’d still rather not . . . I don’t want to, okay? Do I have to be any clearer than that? . . . You are not!... You don’t even know when they come—you’d have to lie on those tracks for hours . . . Forget it, okay?... Look, I’ll get you a schedule so you can time it properly... It’s not a favor, damn it. Now good-bye! (She hangs up) Jesus!