Golden Child

(David Henry Hwang Theater; 236 seats; $30 top)

An East West Players presentation of a play in two acts by David Henry Hwang. Directed by Chay Yew. Sets, Victoria Petrovich; lighting, Jose Lopez; costumes, Joyce Kim Lee; Music composed/adapted by Joel Iwataki; Erhu musician, Phuong Tieu. Opened and reviewed Jan. 26, 2000; runs until Feb. 20. Running time: 2 HOURS, 10 MIN.

Eng Ahn - Melody Butiu Andrew Kwong/Eng Tien-Bin - Daniel Dae Kim Elizabeth Kwong/Eng Eling (Third Wife) - Kerri Higuchi Eng Siu-Yong (First Wife) - Amy Hill Eng-Luan (Second Wife) - Emily Kurada Rev. Anthony Baines - Robert Glaudini Ah-Tsun - Connie Kim Ah-Ti - Annette Lee Ah-Ying - Ming Lo

-----------

East West Players is finally getting around to producing a work by David Henry Hwang ("M Butterfly") in the theater named after him. The 1998 Tony-nominated "Golden Child," making its Los Angeles debut, is Hwang's memory play, focusing on his grandmother's stories of her father's break with Confucian tradition, the man's conversion to Christianity and the cathartic effect this has on his life and the lives of his three wives. Director Chay Yew and an outstanding ensemble infuse the work with an appealing humor that only slightly mitigates Hwang's heavy-handed thematic repetition and overstatement.

In 1918, the small southeast China village of Amoy is looking forward to the return of the community's main benefactor, kind-hearted Eng Tien-Bin (Daniel Dae Kim), who has been successfully trading with Europeans and Americans for over three years in the Philippines. However, the return of the now culturally enlightened businessman marks the end of the old ways for Tien-Bin's family, beginning with his insistence that the torturous practice of binding a young girl's feet be abolished, starting with his beloved daughter, Eng Ahn (Melody Butiu).

Hwang then launches into an overly long war of words and deeds among the wives as they jockey for position in this new order. This only serves to undermine the playwright's intriguing premise that the undisciplined, brutal honesty demanded by Christian truth proved the destruction of Tien-Bin's tradition-bound family, which could not survive outside the safety of its monumentally formal and rigid, centuries old ways.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Dae Kim is perfect as the emotionally ambivalent patriarch who is striving to open himself and his family to the possibilities of the rapidly changing 20th century. Amy Hill (ABC's "All American Girl") offers a marvelously droll portrayal of brilliant but intractable, opium-addicted First Wife Eng Siu-Yong, who is constantly dominating the other wives with such philosophical gems as: "If you can't live with dishonesty than you have no right to be called a woman."

And Melody Butui is riveting in her ability to segue from the strong-willed young Eng Ahn to the feisty modern-day grandmother who relates the family history.

Offering effective contrasts, Kerri Higuchi is sensually compelling as the sexually favored Third Wife Eng Eling, and Emily Kurada is a study in cold-blooded calculation as Second Wife Eng Luan. Robert Glaudini is quite believable as the Rev. Anthony Baines, who is quite willing to be manipulated by Second Wife in order to win Tien-Bin over to Christianity.

The set, costume and lighting designs of Victoria Petrovich, Joyce Kim Lee and Jose Lopez, respectively, create an evocative atmosphere that enhances the production's sense of ritual. This mood is further enriched by the music of Joel Iwataki and the on-stage performance of Erhu musician Phuong Tieu.

The Triumph of Big Feet: David Henry Hwang's powerful play animates an old parable with flesh and blood characters.

David Henry Hwang's splendid 1996 play Golden Child, now in revival by East West Players, has the deceptive simplicity of a toy gyroscope that, once you set it spinning, writhes and tips but stubbornly keeps its balance until it finally runs down. The axis around which Hwang's diverse characters spin is the repressive patriarchal culture of prerevolutionary China, which, before it toppled in the early 20th century from sheer lack of momentum, had piled untold misery on women.

Consider the fate of a woman from a "good" family in those days. From childhood, her feet were squeezed into bindings so tight that, by the time she reached adulthood, she had to shuffle around on painful, stunted appendages. Her parents sold her into a loveless marriage, often forcing her to share a husband with one or two other wives. And there was no resisting. Disobedience was suppressed like a weed in a sidewalk. The whole system was encased in cement, from the generations of forebears who had abided by the rules; to defy it was to anger your ancestors and invite misfortune.

Yet the system also gave women a measure of power and security, suggests this story about an incipiently progressive merchant and his three restive wives. "Call a man master, and he's your slave for life," says the scornful First Wife.

Tien-Bin's three wives call him master, all right. He's a callow, well-meaning fellow, as entrapped by the system as they are. Having traveled outside of China to run his business, Tien-Bin (Daniel Dae Kim) has become intrigued by Christianity and the "modernity" that he has found elsewhere. The world is changing, he announces after his return. "There's a whole new generation of men who will want an educated wife," he says. "Not some backward girl hobbling around on rotting feet, filling the room with the stench of death."

This could all just be the meaningless jabbering of an overactive mind (Tien-Bin quickly apologizes to his wives, whom he has unwittingly insulted) if it weren't for the arrival of a persuasive English missionary (Robert Glaudini)who excites Tien-Bin even further. Meanwhile, his wives face the future with apprehension. Christianity -- that means monogamy, no? Where will they all end up next? Who will be the "only wife"?

Of course, the West will triumph, we all know that. Girls will be released from their bindings, and bigamy will be outlawed. But there are hidden consequences to everything. Loss of culture and traditions always come with a measure of pain and dislocation. It's one of the axioms of the American immigrant experience, where old traditions are fed into the cultural meat grinder. There's a powerful scene in which First Wife (Amy Hill), following her husband's orders, removes the foot bindings from her daughter, Ahn (Melody Butiu). The girl screams in agony as the blood begins to circulate through her feet again. "Daughter, you do not know what a terrible gift is freedom," says the mother grimly.

Hwang tells his sad, humorous tale with such skill that the play has a translucent quality to it. It's an old-fashioned parable with the striking distinction of having flesh and blood characters. The moral of the story is, of course, that freedom is a "terrible gift," though one that can't be denied. This production, directed by Chay Yew, has a phenomenal cast. Each wife stakes out a psychological and spiritual territory. Second Wife (Emily Kuroda), a syrupy schemer, is smart enough to bend with the wind, swallowing the new and modern like medicine. Third Wife (Kerri Higuchi) is all blushing emotion and doubt.

Hill, as First Wife, is the veteran passive resister with an acute understanding of the paradoxes of womanhood, a person who knows how to navigate the Confucian system the way Columbus navigated the waves. Whenever she's onstage, the play gets a big shot of energy. Butiu's Ahn is also remarkable. She opens the play as a grandmother telling her story, and Butiu does an amazing job of transforming herself from septuagenarian to preadolescent. Many of Golden Child's laughs come from the interplay between Tien-Bin and the missionary. The joke is that the Chinese characters are speaking the Mandarin of the educated classes, while the missionary talks a kind of pidgin English, dropping his verbs and articles and using the wrong tense. "Each man, stand alone, choose own life," says the missionary. There it is, in fractured "Chinese," the terrible gift with unforeseen consequences that he has brought to Tien-Bin.

Golden Child
Runs Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m., through Feb. 20, at the David Henry Hwang Theater, 120 N. Judge John Aiso St., Little Tokyo, 800-233-3123.

Daniel Dae Kim is Busy in Acting Career

It is a crisp Sunday afternoon just weeks before Christmas and a group of Asian American actors are gathered on a stage in the heart of Hollywood to rehearse for a reading of a play that will take place in less than an hour. Daniel Dae Kim is thumbing through his script and eager to get to work.

"Is there anything else you guys would like to do?" the director asks.

"I'd like to go over some of the stuff at the beginning," Kim replies.

The 31-year-old actor is part of an all Asian cast preparing to perform a reading of Matt Pelfrey's apocalyptic drama "Cockroach Nation" for the Lodestone Theatre Ensemble. Kim's role is that of Boone, a homeless survivalist who is convinced that the apocalypse (referred to in the play as "Trash Day") is just around the corner. In this particular scene, Kim's Boone is talking to another character named Cockroach Boy (who as his name suggests is a boy who possesses the characteristics of a cockroach).

Inherent to the two characters is a sort of father-son relationship with the elder Boone acting as a surrogate father to the less worldly Cockroach Boy. One of the themes in the play is family and all the complex issues associated with that subject including the often tangled relationship between parents and children. Another prevalent theme is that of expectations--the expectations that others, whether they are your own family or society, have of us and how that is oftentimes at odds with our own destinies and the need to both break away from and reconcile with those expectations. And like all quality apocalyptic works, the play is about the future--the uncertainty, the fear and the hope that accompany the end of a world and the start of a new one.

All are themes that could have been ripped from Daniel Dae Kim's life.

Kim's upbringing wasn't too different from many other 1.5 generation Korean Americans. Born in Pusan, Korea, he immigrated to the United States with his parents when he was two years old. Most of his childhood was spent in Easton, Pennsylvania, not an area of the nation known for its diverse Asian population.

"I suffered the usual racial slurs in school," remembers Kim, "but I also played a lot of sports, so I had the pleasure of hearing them on the playing field as well. I'm sure it's a pretty common story among Asian Americans though."

Although Kim acted in a production of "Harvey" in high school, sports were his true love, and the thought of a career in the arts wasn't even an option. When he enrolled at Haverford College as a political science major, it was with a plan to hop on the professional track after graduation. Kim was well on the way to fulfilling every Korean American parents' dreams of success for their children.

But during his sophomore year of college, a friend asked Kim to act in a play he had written and Kim accepted. The next year, Kim spent a semester studying at the prestigious Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut. Upon his return, he continued acting in college productions, taking theatre courses and soon earned enough credits to add theatre as a second major. Kim was hooked, but there was still one obstacle to confront.

"My parents come from a very traditional, educated upbringing in Korea. My dad went to Yonsei Medical School, and my mom graduated from the English department at Ewha University, so there was pressure to become a professional," Kim says. "We had some rough times for awhile. Actually, in response to my parents' wishes, I was very close to accepting positions at some major Wall Street investment banks before I decided to try acting full time."

But the decision to pursue acting was made, and Kim enrolled in the graduate acting program at New York University, graduating in 1996 with his MFA degree. He amassed an impressive resume acting in plays both Off Broadway and regionally, tackling works from authors as diverse as Philip Kan Gotanda, Han Ong, Shakespeare and Chekov.

But soon Los Angeles beckoned for both practical and artistic reasons.

"After NYU, I had loans to pay off, and I certainly wasn't going to be able to do that living in one of the most expensive cities in the world making $250 a week," Kim says. "I also thought it was the right time to explore film and television more, and L.A. is still the place to do that."

Since moving to Los Angeles in May 1997, Kim has acted steadily in numerous television projects including "NYPD Blue," "Ally McBeal," "The Practice," "Seinfeld" and feature films like "For the Love of the Game" (with Kevin Costner) and "The Jackal," which gave Kim an opportunity to work with his idol Sidney Poitier. Last year, he was a regular on the TNT sci-fi series "Crusade" playing the role of Lt. Matheson, the First Officer of the Starship Excalibur.

Kim will next be starring in East West Players' production of David Henry Hwang's most recent work "Golden Child" which opens this month. Hwang's play is a semi-biographical tale about his great grandfather's conversion to Christianity and the impact that had on the family--past, present and future.

Not only will this be Kim's L.A. stage debut and inaugural show with the nation's oldest Asian American theatre, but it will be the first time Kim has acted in a play in three years. The production also features a distinguished cast including "All American Girl" grandma Amy Hill and Sandra Oh of "Arliss" fame.

"I'm playing two characters--a Chinese businessman living with three wives at the turn of the 20th century, and his grandson, living today in New York City," says Kim. "It's so great to work on David's play. It's a really textured piece with so much for the actor to explore."

Even though the character is written for an older actor, "Golden Child" director Chay Yew knew that Kim would be perfect for the role. Yew first saw Kim perform in Han Ong's "Chang Fragments" at New York's Public Theatre in 1996 and knew he wanted to eventually work with the young actor.

"Daniel Dae Kim is an intelligent, honest and instinctual actor of great proportions," Yew says. "I always believe in casting an actor who is the best and most appropriate for a role. In this case, an actor who possesses keen emotional awareness of the character and who is able to share the stage with four other equally indominitable actors of great spirit. And that actor is Dan Kim."

As to life after "Golden Child," Kim's plans are vague.

"I wish I could tell you I had a clear vision of what my future will be, but this business is so unpredictable," Kim says. "All I know is I want to keep getting better at what I do, and I'll try and let the rest take care of itself."

One obstacle that Kim no longer has to face is his parents' objections to his career choice. "I'm happy to say my parents have come around and support me as best they can," Kim says. "After all, I want them to be proud of their son. Now I even ask my dad for career advice every once in awhile."

And though he may not be too clear about his own future, Kim is optimistic about what the future holds for Asian Americans in the performing arts.

"I see more and more trained young (Asian) actors coming up through the ranks, and just as important, I'm seeing a lot more writers and directors," Kim says. "The next step for us as Asian Americans is to claim ownership of an entire creative process. In the same way that August Wilson, Spike Lee and John Singleton, among others, helped pioneer the way for African Americans in the '80s and '90s, we need to develop visionaries of our own to help us find our way through the 21st Century."

And no doubt Daniel Dae Kim will be counted as one of those pioneering visionaries.

"Golden Child" runs from January 26-Feb. 20. Thurs-Sat. at 8 pm, Sat. and Sunday matinees at 2 pm (no matinee on Sat. Jan 29). East West Players, 120 North Judge John Aiso St., downtown Los Angeles. $25-$30. Tickets: (800) 233-3123. For groups, subscriptions or general info. call (213) 625-7000.

Philip W. Chung is a writer living in Los Angeles. He is co-founder of the Lodestone Theatre Ensemble.

Dae-Break

Like Babylon 5, Crusade also has its own resident telepath, Lt Matheson. Actor Daniel Dae Kim tells Joe Nazzaro about life after the Psi Corps

Several years after the events of Babylon 5, the great Telepath Crisis is over and human/telepath relations are finally returning to normal. The Psi Corps exist, but in a much different from than before. A recently diagnosed telepath doesn't have to join the corps; in fact, they can work in a mundane job or join the military, but they must still be identified as telepaths. Every several months, a high-telepath is dispatched to do a scan, and if rules are found to be broken, there are heavy penalties involved for the violator.

This is the world of John Matheson, first officer of the starship Excalibur, in the new B5 spinoff, series, Crusade. Matheson (played by Daniel Dae Kim) is a young up-and-coming officer whose position in the military is being closely scrutinized. "This is like a trial programme," explains series creator J. Michael Straczynski, "and if it works, they'll keep it going. There are a lot of senators who are very suspicious about this whole thing who are saying, 'If it doesn't work, we're putting everything back; we'll just control it better this time!'"

For Daniel Dae Kim, learning the details of the Crusade universe and his character in particular is a process that's still taking place. "Joe didn't tell me that much," the actor explains, "he just talked a little bit about my background as a telepath. He told me a little about the Psi Corps and how the new regulations ... I guess since Babylon 5 ended and before the time of Crusade began, there was a war, and there are some pretty stringent regulations now about how a telepath can use his or her abilities."

If there's one thing that's immediately apparent upon meeting the man who plays Lieutenant Matheson, it's the fact that a great deal of thought and enthusiasm is currently going into his role. Kim may be a newcomer to the Babylon 5 / Crusade universe, but he's doing his best to get up to speed as quickly as possible. "I've got a box full of tapes and I'm going home to watch them tonight," he promises, "I want to get initiated into this universe. I think there are certain things every actor needs to do regardless of what kind of show they're doing. And finding the universe of the show is a basic part of an actor's homework, whether you're doing a cop show, Shakespeare, or Sci-Fi; that's definitely part of the work. By the same token, as an actor, you need to make things dramatic and you need to know what your intentions are, and there are things that translate into all genres."

Part of that work in this case is creating a mental biography for the character that gives a starting point for his performance, with later Crusade scripts supporting or disproving that biography. "It's something that I have done, actually for Matheson, and I have a feeling there are a lot of things that will turn out to be wrong and there will be other things that will change in the future, but I think it's important to have a frame of reference for your character.

"I have a lot of images for Matheson, and the pre-dominant image is of a dormant volcano. I think he's someone that tries to look serene and placid on the outside, but I think in the future you'll begin to see it bubble up and maybe even explode. I see a guy who's torn between two worlds, the world of telepaths and the world of mundanes. Each are very distinct, and if you're not one or the other, you're not treated the same."

Another aspect of the character that is certainly apparent in the first handful of Crusade episodes shot is that Matheson appears a bit stiff and formal. Part of that can be attributed to the more rigid grey uniforms worn early in the first season (those episodes now air later in the 13-episode run), but the Excalibur's first officer isn't the most relaxed guy on the bridge. "I think he tries hard when he's doing his job, to be the best at his job. He tries to give off the perception that there's nothing else going on other that what his orders are and what his duty is."

At first glance, Matheson seems to be one of the lighter characters on the Excalibur, but that might jest be because of the company he keep. After all, it's been established that Captain Matthew Gideon (Gary Cole) has a few skeletons in his closet, as do Galen (Peter Woodward), the ship's resident Technomage, and Max Eilerson, the IPX archaeologist who most definitely has an agenda of his own.

Upon further scrutiny, however, viewers will discover that Matheson may not be the straight arrow he appears at first. In an episode called The Path of Sorrows, a flashback sequence shows his involvement with a young telepath who is part of the resistance movement against the Psi Corps. "What do they say about people who are so much the white knight?" says Kim. "That the whitest knights have the darkest side. I think you'll see a dark side to everybody. Part of the great thing about the character is in the past, before Crusade was explored, so there are a lot of places to go."

Landing a lead role in a high-profile SF series is just the latest high point in a career that started in 1990. After graduating college, Kim acted for three years before gong back to school for his MFA and then worked as an actor in New York until 1997. He moved to LA that spring, moving into film and television with some success.

Among the actor's feature film credits are The Jackal, Addicted to Love, American Shaolin, Surprise and Leftovers. His television appearances include NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Seinfeld, Ally McBeal, The Pretender, The Practice, Beverly Hills 90210, and the TV movie Brave New World.

With the possible exception of Brave New World, Kim was a relative newcomer to the Sci-Fi genre, so when the opportunity arose to audition for Crusade, he thought it could be an interesting project to work on. "It was one of those things where it had been a really slow summer in terms of film and television work and this came around and I thought to myself, 'Well, this could be a pretty fantastic opportunity', so I went to the usual round of auditions and tested and got the part."

Filming on Crusade began during the first week of August 1998, but most of the cast were able to get to know each other a bit before the cameras began rolling. "I actually did a reading with Gary [Cole] about five months earlier," says Kim, "at a theatre in Hollywood, so that's where we met, pure coincidence. Joe Straczynski invited us dinner one night the week before we started, so all the regulars got together over excellent Indian food. We just talked a lot. Joe was really open and told us what to expect, and he said, 'Any questions you have, throw them at me,' and we did. He told us a little about the universe and he told us about the storyline and the arc, and he told us about the world outside the work we do, like conventions and these kind of interviews and things like that, so he filled us in. I had some questions, I think we all did. Because Babylon 5 is so complex and so thorough in its creation, there were a lot of things I needed to know about where I fit in. I think it's something I will learn and need to learn, but I can't let it intimidate me."

Exposition

Another discipline that Kim had to start learning right from the start of filming was a lot of the more difficult expositional dialogue that his character was frequently given. While Matheson doesn't have to deal with the same scientific technobabble as, say, Eilerson or Dr Chambers, he still gets stuck with much of the explication. "I definitely have to get used to that!" laughs the actor with mock dismay. "It's hard, but it's very interesting. It's good stuff to work on, and I'll take whatever I can get."

As for the other baggage that comes with working on a genre series like Crusade, such as conventions and fan mail, Kim admits to still being a bit nervous. "I don't know the world very well, so that would be my only source of trepidation. All I can say is I don't know what to expect, but from what I've seen and what I've heard -- I actually have a very good friend who did a Sci-Fi show for a year, Joel de la Fuent [who appeared in Space: Above and Beyond as Paul Wang] , and he filled me in a little bit about that, and he had some wonderful stories about the fans, so I'm looking forward to finding out more about it."

While the long-term future of Crusade now seems uncertain, Daniel Dae Kim plans to enjoy the voyage for as long as it lasts. "Who knows," he reflects, "this show may not go the five years, but I'm hoping that it does. I've just got to look at it as I've got to do the work regardless of how long it's going to go."