Golden Child

Good play

Good book and its knew

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING: This play includes a scene describing a suicide being carried out.Playwright David Henry Hwang grew up hearing amazing, almost mythical stories of his great grandfather's life, a life crafted by the choice to swap Confucianism for Christianity, boldly breaking with Chinese tradition when he decided to let his daughter grow up with unbound feet. Such decisions would impact future generations and came to inspire Hwang to write the play Golden Child.The timeline of the story alternates between a small village in Southeast China during the Winter 1918 - Spring 1919 and Manhattan in the late 1990s. The opening scene combines the two when Andrew Kwong in Manhattan, awakens with a start one night, puts on a robe and begins to take on the personality of his grandfather, Tieng-Bin. Andrew converses with Ahn, his grandmother. She appears to him as a young girl of ten but her voice is that of an elderly woman. This conversation between them eases the audience into the transition to early 20th century China, where we are soon fully immersed.In the village of Amoy, we meet the three wives of Tieng-Bin, a prosperous land owner: first wife Siu-Yong, second wife Luan, and third wife Eling. Tieng-Bin has recently returned home after a three year absence. He'd been living in the Phillipines for business and now that he is back, man and wives settle into a nice dinner where everyone gets reacquainted. The conversation starts to shift into Tieng-Bin telling of his observations in the Phillipines, mainly the growing influence of Christianity and western culture throughout the area and how that got him thinking about his own upbringing. At first he claims that he merely finds western ideas interesting, the inventions amusing --- some of these inventions he presents to his wives as gifts. First wife Siu-Yong's response to her gift, a cuckoo clock, was the best: "I'm sure it will do wonders for my insomnia." 😄His traditional wives are suspicious, especially 2nd wife Luan, who fears that their polygamous lifestyle will soon be threatened by Tieng-Bin's experiences. Though the play does incorporate serious cultural themes, the bickering and shade-throwing between the wives ends up offering comic relief. Though Siu-Yong is one of the most entertaining of the bunch at the start of the play, later on I was disturbed by the manipulative nature of some of her conversations with her daughter, Ahn (Andrew's grandmother from the opening scene).In the later portions of this story, Tieng-Bin introduces his wives to Reverend Baines, a minister from England Tieng-Bin became acquainted with during his travels. The wives come to know Baines as "white devil". At first I was confused as to why Baines' lines were presented in broken English, as this play is printed in English (my reasoning being "wouldn't the characters understand each other just fine?"). There aren't really too many clues within the text regarding language barrier. Then it dawned on me that what was likely going on was that Baines was probably actually speaking in poor Chinese, so, when translated, his words would come out as oddly constructed. But I do love Baines line that says "You must not fear to speak the truth you know in your soul."While the story comes off somewhat light-hearted in the early scenes (but mildly snarky, hinting at underlying feelings of discontent to surface later), closer to the end there is a noticeable shift toward the more serious, as discussions between the characters growing increasingly tense as they all finally address the strains they feel as, culturally, the old ways clash against the new.An interesting story, but one that didn't REALLY grab me til just before the climactic end. This script may fall under the type of plays where the words alone just aren't enough and perhaps infinitely more is gained by seeing it on stage.

I saw this play performed at the Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City and bought the book at the Signature bookstore. I think having a bookstore in a theater is a great idea! So after reading the book I found that the framing device used in the production I saw must be new. The framing device that was added is hinted at in the introduction, the descendent of Eng Tieng-Bin uses a tape recorder to record the oral history of Eng Ahn.

If you liked the segments of the film "The Joy Luck Club" which took place in China, you'll love David Henry Hwang's play "Golden Child." Although Hwang is probably better known for his play "M. Butterfly," "Golden Child" is a remarkable piece of writing which deserves attention. According to the production history included in the book version, an early version of "Golden Child" premiered in 1996, and a later version was presented at Broadway's Longacre Theatre in 1998. But "Golden Child" is also one of those plays which succeeds purely as a readers' text."Golden Child" opens with Andrew, a Westernized man of Chinese heritage, who is visited by the ghost of his Chinese-born mother. This brief prologue leads to the story of his mother's girlhood in China. We meet Andrews's grandfather, Tieng-Bin; Tieng-Bin's three wives; and the Western clergyman who seeks to convert them to Christianity."Golden Child" is a thought-provoking exploration of family life and cross-cultural contact. There is both humor and tragedy in the dialogue. The story addresses such topics as polygamy, foot-binding, ancestor worship, and opium use in traditional Chinese culture. Hwang's ironic portrayal of the politics of "conversion" may be a revelation to those Western Christians who harbor romantic, idealistic notions about bringing the "light" to non-European peoples. I was very impressed with Hwang's writing, and I highly recommend "Golden Child."

I don't normally read plays. I always feel as if I will be missing something by reading the script rather than seeing it performed. After reading David Henry Hwang's "Golden Child", however, I am hoping that I will one have the opportunity to see this play in person. Hwang mentions in the introduction that "Golden Child" underwent several rewrites until the final draft was completed. The end product, to me, is utterly flawless. A perfect mesh of comedy and tragedy unfolds as Hwang confronts the effects a man's conversion to Christianity has in early 20th century China. A very captivating read, I highly recommend David Henry Hwang's "Golden Child".

I will never understand why this play tanked in New York. It is a simple, elegant tale about assimilation and familial dysfunction. David Henry Hwang is a masterful writer, and this is some of his best work. The only weakness is its ending, which falls a little flat as a character (who is clearly the author) explains the entire point, as if the audience missed it. Although this (like most of his work) is about Chinese, it should be read by people of all walks of life.