Family Devotions at Halcyon Theatre
★★☆☆☆
Halcyon Theatre (see Fringe &
storefront). By David Henry Hwang.
Dir. Jenn Adams. With ensemble
cast. 1hr 15mins; no intermission.
David Henry Hwang’s tricky, cynical comedy, which debuted at New York’s Public Theater when the writer was just 24 years old, takes on Asian-American assimilationism in the early ’80s. We’re introduced to a Southern California family of first- and second-generation Chinese immigrants in which the Americanized women do aerobics to Olivia Newton-John and the men one-up each other over their collections of tax shelters. Jenny (Katelyn Foley), the youngest daughter, pores over Vogue and wants to become a dancer, while her cousin Chester (Jin Kim)—who those who saw Hwang’s more recent Yellow Face may infer is an authorial stand-in—is off to play violin for the Boston Symphony.
Watching over all are constantly disapproving elders Popo (Kaori Aoshima) and Ama (Mia Park). Both keepers of the Chinese cultural flame and devoutly Christian—having been converted by a missionary family member who’s spoken of with the greatest reverence—the sisters eagerly await a visit from their long- lost brother Di-Gou (Arvin Jalandoon), who stayed behind in China when the rest of the family departed for the Philippines. When Di-Gou arrives, he upends everyone’s expectations.
Though some moments land with precision, overall Hwang’s delicate balance of biting satire and goofy farce eludes Halcyon’s production. Jenn Adams’s staging has too little room to breathe in the cramped confines of the Greenhouse’s downstairs studio space; Tony Adams’s scenic design creates blocking and sightline issues even as it does little to suggest a nouveau-riche Bel Air sunroom. With the cast tilting overblown from the start, Hwang’s heightened climax loses its power.—Kris Vire
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