Review: (Toronto) Ching Chong Chinaman

Zoe Doyle (photo credit: Alex Felipe)

Inside the Family
by Beat Rice
(This article has been corrected)

This year Fu-Gen Theatre celebrates its 10th year anniversary by staging Lauren Yee’s satirical comedy about an assimilated Asian American family and an indentured Chinese worker. The Wongs are a nuclear family consisting of Father Ed (John Ng), Mother Grace (Brenda Kamino), university applicant daughter Desdemona (Zoe Doyle), and 15-year-old Warcraft addict Upton (Oliver Koomsitara Koomsatira). 

The four basically do not identify themselves as Chinese at all and seem to be completely oblivious to basic Chinese customs. Their ignorance is the base of the comedy for the first half of the play. When Jinquiang (Richard Lee), or “J”, enters their household they are not quite sure how to treat him, but they do find different ways of using him to their individual advantage. In this, Yee has created an interesting paradigm of the assimilated and the immigrant, something Torontonians and other North Americans alike can understand. J comes to America with dreams of becoming a dancer and is confused by cultural differences of the American family that looks Chinese.  Another character, simply called ‘Chinese Woman’ (Jane Yuk Luk), plays several roles and voices in the play, real and subconscious.

Sunday Feature: John Ng on Ching Chong Chinaman (fu-GEN, Toronto)

NO OFFENSE. NONE TAKEN...
by John Ng

Last week, an older brother of mine invited me for a ten-course meal at an upscale Cantonese restaurant in Scarborough to meet a group of his closest friends, most of whom he met while on a cruise ship in Europe a few years back and all, like him, are first-generation Chinese immigrants, fellow retirees with deep-pockets and the accompanied status that was earned through years of unrelenting work ethic. Now, they are dedicated thrill-seekers, prone to spending lavishly and satisfying their burgeoning appetite as they happily reap the fruits of their labour.