Customer Reviews

Asian American Drama: 9 Plays from the Multiethnic Landscape

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This anthology is a well-selected one. It has a wide range of plays of different styles, from romantic comedy to absurdist family drama to post-modern weirdness. In response to the reviewer (and many other critics) who say that this is not a distinctly Asian collection of plays, I say, that's mostly the point: what really separates an Asian-American playwright and a white playwright? Or the Asian-American experience against the Caucasian experience? Just what you see.

This anthology is proof positive that the Asian-American can and does do as much and as well as any other race. We are, in the end, all people experiencing the world through our own respective eyes. Maybe it just happens that a lot of people experience similar things.

The big problem, at least with the edition I read, is that there are numerous typographical errors. Sometimes a line is attributed to a character who shouldn't be in the scene. Some are misspelled (among the most egregiously, the name of Dwight Omata in the table of contents) and can be distracting to reading and, therefore, understanding the play. It is the only gripe that makes this product less than a perfect 5-star.

I am an actor, and I found this collection, just outstanding! Every play is excellent and readable even on the page. Several plays by women as well. Read and Enjoy. Then go out and put it together and act, produce and direct it! I will

I could care less for any of these plays. The authors seem to try and create a new brand of Asian literature. With the plays that I've read here, I hope that won't happen. Some of them are badly written and the characters aren't all too complex. But, this book shouldn't be called "Asian American Drama." Because there isn't anything Asian about it, except that the plays were written by Asians. Aside note: David Henry Hwang writes, "Frank Chin's play The Chicken Coop Chinaman was criticized for reinforcing stereotypes of broken-English-speaking Chinatown tour guides." If you read Chickencoop Chinaman, there is no Chinatown tour guide! Anyway, If you want something distinctively Asian, you have to narrow it down somewhere. You can't make up something culturally phony like some of these authors.