Chinglish : a play PDF
Preview Chinglish : a play
BEST amErican play of 2011! —TimE magazinE a play DaviD Henry Hwang By ThE auThor of M. Butterfly and yellow face Chinglish Books by David Henry Hwang Available from TCG Chinglish Flower Drum Song Book by David Henry Hwang Music by Richard Rodgers Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II Golden Child Trying to Find Chinatown includes: Bondage The Dance and the Railroad Family Devotions FOB The House of Sleeping Beauties The Sound of a Voice Trying to Find Chinatown The Voyage Yellow Face Chinglish A plAy David Henry Hwang Chinese translations by Candace Mui Ngam Chong Chinese language editing by Joanna C. Lee THeATre CommuniCATions Group new york 2012 Chinglish is copyright © 2012 by David Henry Hwang Chinglish is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156 All Rights Reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by edu- cational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s rep- resentative: William Craver, Paradigm, 360 Park Avenue South, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10010, (212) 897-6400. The publication of Chinglish by David Henry Hwang through TCG’s Book Program is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution. CIP data information is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. eISBN: 978-1-55936-426-3 Book design and composition by Lisa Govan First Edition, May 2012 Chinglish proDuCTion HisTory Chinglish was developed at the Lark Play Development Center (John Eisner, Artistic Director; Michael Robertson, Managing Director), New York City, in association with The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director), New York City. Chinglish premiered at the Goodman Theatre (Robert Falls, Artis- tic Director; Roche Schulfer, Executive Director) on June 18, 2011. It was directed by Leigh Silverman; the set design was by David Korins, the costume design was by Anita Yavich, the lighting design was by Brian MacDevitt, the projection design was by Jeff Sugg and Shawn Duan, the sound design was by Darron L. West; the cultural advisors were Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith, the Mandarin Chinese translator was Candace Mui Ngam Chong, the production stage man- ager was Alden Vasquez and the dramaturgs were Oskar Eustis and Tanya Palmer. The cast was: daniel cavanaugh James Waterston peter timms Stephen Pucci cai guoliang Larry Lei Zhang xi yan Jennifer Lim qian/prosecutor li Angela Lin bing/judge geming Johnny Wu zhao Christine Lin understudies Norm Boucher, Angela Lin, Brian Nishii, Clara Wong Chinglish was produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jay and Cindy Gutterman/Cathy Chernoff, Heni Koenigs- berg/Lily Fan, Joseph and Matthew Deitch, Dasha Epstein, Ronald and Marc Frankel, Barry and Carole Kaye, Mary Lu Roffe, The Broad way Consortium, Ken Davenport, Filerman Bensinger, Herbert Gold smith, Jam Theatricals, Olympus Theatricals, Playful Produc- tions, David and Barbara Stoller, Roy Gottlieb and Hunter Arnold, in association with the Goodman Theatre, and Jeremy Scott Blaustein, associate producer. It opened at the Longacre Theatre on October 27, 2011, with these changes: Daniel Cavanaugh was played by Gary Wilmes; the understudies were Tony Carlin, Angela Lin, Brian Nishii and Vivian Chiu; the production stage manager was Stephen M. Kaus. CHArACTers daniel cavanaugh: a businessman, Caucasian, American, forties peter timms: a consultant, Caucasian, British, forties cai guoliang: the Cultural Minister, Chinese, male, fifties xi yan: Vice Minister of Culture, Chinese, female, forties miss qian: a translator, Chinese bing: Cai’s nephew, a translator, Chinese, twenties zhao: a translator, Chinese, female judge xu geming: Xi’s husband, forty to fifty (played by the actor who plays Bing) prosecutor li: female, thirties (played by the actor who plays Qian) waiter, hotel manager, driver: doubling at director’s discretion noTe Cast breakdown: 2 Caucasian males, 3 Asian females, 2 Asian males. seTTinG The present. An American assembly room and the city of Guiyang, China. eDiTor’s noTe on lAnGuAGe Dialogue is spoken in Mandarin Chinese, the modern standard lan- guage known in China as Putonghua (or “common language”). Dia- logue in bold indicates English translation (displayed in supertitles in production) of dialogue spoken in modern standard Chinese. Note: the English translation doesn’t always match the Mandarin. Chinese dialogue will be displayed in two formats: traditional characters: 繁體中文 and pinyin, the Romanization system from the People’s Republic of China. For instructional purposes today, most people in America, Austra- lia and Europe learn Putonghua using the pinyin system, which has four standardized tones for vowel pronunciation, numerically arranged: 1st tone (high, marked ā, ē, ī, ō, ū); 2nd tone (high rising, marked á, é, í, ó, ú), 3rd tone (low falling-rising, marked ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ), 4th tone (high fall- ing, marked à, è, ì, ò, ù) and also the neutral tone, which is not marked. As with any complex tonal language, there are exceptions to pro- nunciation rules. These are often adjustments to facilitate the flow of the language. One such example is the word “bù” (不), which is the negating adverb, usually pronounced in the 4th tone. However, when it is used before another 4th tone, it changes to the 2nd tone (bú). Another exception is the succession of words in the 3rd tone, when all will change to the 2nd tone except the final 3rd tone. Chi- nese characters sometimes have multiple pronunciations (changing in tones, sometimes even changing the vowels), depending on context, and whether they are used as verbs or nouns. While normally “tonal changes” are not marked in standard printed pinyin, we have made all of the adjustments as a guide to
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