Can A Gay Asian Be An Ugly American? The Nanjing Race Review

Philip is not responsible for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Chinese, but that is what Bao thinks about when he looks at him. Bao’s fellow hotel worker Yu Ahn sees Philip as his ticket to America. But Philip, a gay Japanese-American businessman from New Jersey, views himself differently than these two hotel “floor boys” whom he meets on his first trip to China, in 1988. He sees himself as an outcast.

The complexities of identity and perception are explored in “The Nanjing Race,” a modest, appealing play by Reggie Cheong-Leen at long last getting its New York debut, at the Abingdon Theater Company, where it runs through November 21.

Set in Nanjing, a commercial center in China that was the site of an infamous massacre by the Japanese army in 1937, the drama plays with the assumptions, antagonisms and desires of its three characters.

Philip (Marcus Ho) has arrived after a 30-hour flight with instructions to buy industrial supplies as cheaply as possible. He was picked for the trip because his company assumed his Asian face would win over the government-run enterprise – an irony on several levels.

He is just the latest foreign visitor that Yu Ahn (Ian Wen) treats with obsequious attention, in the hopes that Philip will sponsor him to the United States, where his background as the grandson of a landlord will not hinder his advancement.

Yu Ahn enlists his co-worker Bao (James Chen) to talk him up to the foreigner. But Bao shares something with Philip that, at least momentarily, transcends any differences – a sexual orientation.

“The Nanjing Race” was first produced at the McCarter Theater in Princeton in 1994 starring B.D. Wong and won an award given by the American Theatre Critics Association for the best play not yet produced in New York City. Much has changed in the People’s Republic of China since then, but the glimpses into the life and attitudes of two ordinary Chinese count among the strengths of this play, as do the humor and pathos in the clash of cultures. Scenes alternate between interaction between Philip and one or both of the workers, in which they speak in broken English and act politely, and scenes between the two workers, in which they speak roughly to one another and in flawless English (a stand-in for the Chinese with which they are conversing). Neither of the Chinese characters are solely as they first appear. Yu Ahn’s desperation to become financially secure is in part fueled by a desire to persuade his ex-wife to let him see his son. Whatever Bao’s patriotism for his homeland, he once tried to swim to freedom for the sake of his then-lover.

The strengths of the script are helped by the Abingdon Theater’s production, especially Andrew Lu’s simple and efficient set (that does triple-duty as hotel room, laundry room, mountain peak) and Ian Wen’s stand-out performance, helping us believe the sharp contradictions in his character.

Less successful are some of the mechanics of the plot, and the character of Philip. It is hard to understand why an exhausted Philip would put up with Yu Ahn staying in his room for so long, and not quite credible that, when he finally kicks him out, he would physically shove him. Bao says of Americans “They’re all too aggressive, not a bit of sensitivity or subtlety,” and Philip embodies this view in a way that, if not completely unrealistic, certainly grates. Perhaps this is intentional, the playwright’s way of subverting assumptions, of saying: Yes, America is a land of opportunity, and what that means is that even a gay Asian son of an immigrant has the opportunity to make himself into an Ugly American.