Inspired by a true story, Lloyd Suh’s piercing and whimsical play draws a stark line from the voyeuristic gawking of 19th century audiences to the anti-Asian violence of today.
The Chinese Lady tells the story of Afong Moy, a young woman involuntarily brought from Guangzhou to be exhibited as a curiosity in America in 1834. Forced to present a version of her Chinese identity that is “exotic and foreign and unusual,” Afong, with the help—and hindrance—of her translator Atung, also reflects back her own unvarnished perceptions of America. We learn of our own emperor (Andrew Jackson), and our own strange customs, like corsets, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Chinese Lady is both a caustic examination of racism in America and a deeply American story of migration and self-discovery.
