YELLOW FACE, PLAY.

Through the show “Yellow Face,” Hwang aims to clarify what racial identity is. In order to challenge the directors of numerous shows, he places himself at the epicenter of Asian Americans’ racial discrimination in the American film industry. He makes reference to the dangerous xenophobic prosecutions of Chinese Americans in the 1990s throughout the play. The show satirically explores issues such as whether race ought to define a person’s identity and what it means to be classified as an ethnic group.

When a play is produced for YouTube, the director introduces the cast first. The significance of the curtain raising is to introduce the theme of the play to prepare the audience of what to expect. This introduction is meant to make the audience relate with the plot of the play. In the film ‘Yellow Face,’ Hwang introduces the plot of the film by recounting occurrences where Asians have been hyphenated in American film industry and their roles given to Americans in favor of their origin. Through this introduction, the audience is brought to light on the plot of the film, discrimination against Asians in theatre, where they are denied to play Asian roles (David Np).

The audience studies the stage of the play, as it is the ideal world in the play. The audience analyses the general characteristics of the stage world, including how time changes in the play, probes the climate arrayed in the play and if there are seasonal changes along the play. the audience then examines the tone of the play. They should appraise whether the mood of the play matches the plot. Tone and music are fundamental components of play which contribute to mood setting. The audience then scrutinizes to know if the tone and the music on the stage complements to the mod of the play (Fuchs 6).

According to David (Np), one of the differences between theatre and digital screen is the orientation of the throng. In a theatre, the audience can be as far as fifty feet from the performers. The audience must hear and see the performers in order to relish the play, therefore, the troupers must perform for the back row. Unlike theatre, digital screen does not require aggrandized voice and stage movements. When B. D. Wang calls Hwang to inform him of the selection of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian engineer in the musical ‘Miss Saigon,’ he does not shout on phone even though the he wishes to emphasize on the discrimination against Asians in actors’ selection. In digital screen, sound enhancement and video editing are applied to augment the play for quintessential amusement.

In theatre, the audience gets familiar with the material as many companies put up similar plays for example Yellow Face was acted in LA, NYC, UK and Hong Kong with different actors for the same character. The audience therefore gets familiar with the role of each performer and the plot of the play. For this reason, critics start comparing performers in each play from previous performances. Therefore, performers have to be perfect in subsequent performances as there is little solecism that the audience can greet before grumbling. In digital theatre, every material is fresh and it has no chance of being performed by another performer. There are no chances of having multiple actors perform the same character so there is no reference point for critics on digital screen (Fuchs 7).

A few changes are employed to Yellow Face when it appears on YouTube in order to match the required format and to attract viewership. In the film, Hwang introduces story telling as well as video integration. After B. D.’s call, Hwang leads us to a video snippet that was news protest artistic discrimination against Asians. When he meets with the directors of ‘Miss Saigon,’ to bargain for Asian inclusion, pictures of his suggested actors pop up in the discussion. After the cancellation of the show, news from all broadcasting corporation are played in the film. Video integration would not be possible on theatre (Billington Np).

According to David (Np), the audience is a vital component in the film industry. In theatre, the audience engagement with the performer determines the success of the play. An audience that is quiet and dull in comedy breaks the morale of the performer. Digital films use audience and critics reviews to improve on their materials and products for subsequent films. However, in a YouTube play such as ‘Yellow Face,’ the audience is not part of the performance. This is because the film was acted in the absence of the audience, then uploaded on YouTube. Therefore, the audience critics and comments can neither affect the words of Hwang or other performers in the film nor set the mood of the film.

Conclusion.

Through ‘Yellow Face,’ Hwang fought against film discrimination in America. Its result was inclusion of all races without bias in film. In theater, the performers must project their voice to the last row, while in digital screen voice should only be audible to the microphone. The throng is not part of the performance in a YouTube film as they do not have direct contact with the performers or the stage.

Works Cited.

Billington, Michael. “Yellow Face review – a probing, political satire on racial identity.” The Guardian. 12 May 2104. The guardian. Web. 9 July 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/may/12/yellow-face-review-david-henry-hwang

Fuchs, Elinor. ”EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play.” MIT. Pp. 5-9. MIT EDU. 9 July 2017. http://web.mit.edu/jscheib/Public/foundations_06/ef_smallplanet.pdf

Ng. David. ”A play on YouTube? ’Yellow Face’ debuts, starring Christopher Gorham.” Los Angeles Times. 10 June 2013. LATimes. Web. 9 July 2017. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-yellow-face-christopher-gorham-20130606-story.html