Ch’ing-lish by David Henry Hwang is a play based on the language barriers between cultures. The play is about a businessman who arrives in China in hopes of creating a deal with the minister. Throughout the entire play, Daniel Cavanaugh played by Gary Wilmes, has trouble understanding what everyone says to him. The play’s plot does not seem to be quite interesting as the main goal of the production is to entertain the audience with the translations. Since I understood the Chinese as well as the English, it made the experience a little different from the non-Mandarin speakers. I think the play displayed a fantastic use of the props and set. The lines that were “lost in translation” were quite noteworthy as well. Finally, the actors’ performance was the cherry on the cake.
The set was one of the biggest things that I was intrigued by. The set was constantly changing to accommodate every scene. I liked to watch as the set changed each time the lights dimmed. David Korins was the scenic designer for the play. I think that he did an outstanding job with how he presented each scene and how he transitioned into the next. The use of an elevator impressed me a lot since you would not expect an elevator to be on stage. Even more interesting was how the doors actually worked and it looked like an actual elevator. The spinning of the set also allowed many different locations. I also liked how some actors came in on the moving platforms instead of entering from the sides.
One of the funniest aspects of the play is the text that is “lost in translation.” Candace Chong was in charge of the translations that occur on a screen. The subtitles play a critical part in the humor of the player. Even though I speak Mandarin Chinese, I had a two-sided experience of the play. I can say that it was honestly much funnier understanding it from both sides since I understood many of the misinterpretations. During one part, Gary’s character was asked to pronounce “I love you.” However, in Mandarin Chinese, the way you pronounce a word greatly changes it’s meaning. He mispronounced it many times, which changed, it’s meaning into nonsense.
Since this play is centered on the language, it is extremely important that it is legitimate. Also, I commend the legitimacy of the play as well since many plays “fake” the subtitles to create the humor effect. However, this play was extremely accurate with the translations and didn’t use any of the “fake” subtitles. I can say that the play displayed the language barrier extremely well. Also, it was easily understandable to audience as well. David Henry Hwang, the playwright, definitely captured the amusing aspects of language translation.
Lastly, the actors did an incredibly well job for the play to be a success. Jennifer Lim and Gary Wilmes displayed an extraordinary performance. I have to admit, Jennifer Lim’s performance was quite impressive since she held a large and important role to the story as the minister’s assistant. Gary Wilmes also played his character extremely well as the traveling businessman. His cluelessness of the situation that went on without his knowledge and how he reacts to many of the things that happen truly show that he is immersed in his character. I also liked the performance of Larry Lei Zhang, Minister Cai, since he seemed like a typical authority figure. Last of all, I greatly praise Stephen Pucci, Peter Timms, since he had to be able to speak Mandarin Chinese. He spoke it extremely well with much less of an accent that most Americans that try the language. I’m not sure if he knew how to speak it before or had to learn it for this particular play, though nonetheless his performance with a foreign language is outstanding.
I greatly enjoyed Ch’ing-lish due to the great use of the stage, the legitimacy and hilarity of the language and the performance by the actors. These three things greatly emphasized this play and set it apart from some other plays that I have seen. It captured my attention and continued to interest me. I would much enjoy watching another play by David Henry Hwang.
