Interview: Francis Jue on Returning to Yellow Face and the Power of Asian American Stories on Broadway

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Having done the original production in the same role, were you part of the Broadway run from the jump?
Right before they made the announcement that Daniel Dae Kim was coming to Broadway in Yellow Face, I was contacted by both David and Leigh, who both said, “We don’t know why they’re making this announcement in January, but we haven’t even had meetings about casting, budget, nothing. So, we can’t tell you anything.” And I said “Look, I know this is Broadway and Daniel Dae Kim is a huge international star and you may need to go in a different way. I’m just happy that this story is finally getting a wider audience.” And they said, “Hold tight and we’ll let you know.”

And so, I waited and waited and started to wonder where I should be in the fall so that I’m nowhere near New York City when all of this is happening. I did have some offers that I was holding in my back pocket, and then a month or two before we started, I finally got the call from Leigh. She said “I want you to know that we never talked about anybody else. We didn’t make an offer to anybody else. You are our Henry if you want it.” And I’m in my room jumping up and down. I’ve been looking forward to this for 17 years.

I think Yellow Face is meeting the moment now better than it did in 2007. Does it feel that way for you too?
It feels like the world has finally caught up to David Henry Hwang. Back when we did it, my feeling was that people loved the backstage bitchery and the inside scoop, and when the play started getting political and serious and personal, people got a little impatient. Obama was about to go into the White House and racism was over. Even within the Asian American theater community, people were asking David why he was still writing about identity and what it means to be American. David knew and knows that those are two sides of the same coin, and those questions were and still are relevant, especially during this election season.

How has it been to finally be age appropriate to play David’s father?
Apparently, I was old enough to play David’s father 17 years ago, and in spite of the fact that I’m only four years older than Daniel Dae Kim, I am old enough to play his father now. Therein lies the difference between Daniel and me. [Laughs]

One of the things that David told me about his dad, when we were in rehearsal the first time around, was that his dad stood tall. When he walked into a room, he was the star. Back then, I was so concerned about age that I was trying to simulate being older. This time around, I don’t have to approximate the age, so I took what David said and I thought, “This doesn’t mean that his body isn’t older, but here’s a man who knows that he is the star of every room.”

And with David and Leigh’s help, I’ve learned that I don’t need to ask permission to be the center of a story. When I first did this show, there was a part of me that — maybe because I grew up as a shy, underweight, pimply Asian kid in San Francisco — needed to prove to people that I was a human being before they would even be able to understand the character or the story. After two decades of working with both David and Leigh, they’ve finally been able to coax me into just enjoying the fact that we are in a room together telling stories, to not need to ask permission, and that I have a right to tell a story as much as anybody else.

Did having played a version of David in Soft Power enlighten or inform the choices you’re making to play his father in Yellow Face?
Totally. I was much less nervous playing David than I am playing his father, back in 2007 and now. I’m having to explore David’s feelings about his dad and their complicated relationship. It was much easier for me to play David’s hubris and pride and self-deprecation in Soft Power than it is for me to be an antagonist who smothers David with love. I think that’s maybe a reflection of my own relationship with my family. There’s nobody who knows you like your family in that intimate way, and there’s no one you want approval from more than your parents.

It was interesting to look at the King and I moment in the play through the lens of Soft Power, which subverts what that musical is. How do you interpret that, having been in both shows?
I’ve been asked questions about King and I, about Millie, about Miss Saigon, all of which I’ve done and been proud of. I totally understand why people have problems with them, and it’s been fun exploring David’s perspective. I think it’s possible to do these shows in racist and sexist ways — any show can be done racist and sexist if you want to do it that way. The productions that I did, I believe, didn’t fall into those traps.

There’s a way to tap into what I think Rodgers and Hammerstein were doing, which was not providing a clown foil for Gertrude Lawrence. It’s a King who ruled a kingdom that is the only Asian country never to have been colonized by a Western power. Although he was a man of his time, he advanced the country toward a form of equity that he could imagine from his perspective. I think it’s a much more fun show if it’s a Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn kind of competition than if it’s just about a white woman coming to educate the savages.

It’s the same with Miss Saigon when the Engineer is played like the personification of evil, who enslaved these women and forced them to be prostitutes. Then you’re ignoring the fact that prostitution does happen, that people in those situations have to make difficult choices.

You’ve done so many great off-Broadway plays that, like Yellow Face, deserve a wider Broadway audience. Which of those do you hope would make the eventual jump, even if it takes another 17 years?
Cambodian Rock Band is one of the most thrilling, complicated, beautiful shows I’ve done, and I think it would be a huge hit on Broadway if someone would dare to do it. I hope that when it happens, I’m still upright so that I can do it again.

It’s ironic. I get so much joy from doing Yellow Face, and I will always be grateful for Roundabout and Scott Ellis snapping it up, but there are only a handful of plays ever done on Broadway in, what, 140 years of Broadway, that have centered on Asian characters or Asian stories. And David is only one of two Asian writers to be on Broadway, which is even crazier to think about.

There are so many great plays, not just by Lauren Yee, but by Mike Lew, Qui Nguyen, Susan Stanton, myriad writers, some who are going to get mad at me for not mentioning them, that I think would have great success on Broadway if people just allowed for, one, more new plays, and two, Asian American playwrights who are writing stories centered on Asians.