Queens' voices of diversity take stage at Theatre in the Park

By Charlotte Lau, Beyond Race Magazine
04/20/2006

Wong, in conjunction with Director Victory Maog, will present her two one-act plays, which she titled together as "Off-White/Eclipse." "Off-White" is a comedy that takes place in Manhattan bars, as two Asian-American friends - one homosexual and the other heterosexual - talk on the phone with each other as they try to navigate the singles scene. "Eclipse" is a drama about the friendship that forms, despite language barriers, when Yan, a Chinese immigrant, saves Ben, a Chinese American, who has been attacked on the street.

Thomas worked with director Claire Lundberg on her play, "My Secret Language of Wishes," which will appear a week later. The story centers around the various women touched by the adoption battle over a disabled black girl named Rose. Brenda, a wealthy African-American woman, and Rose, a less affluent Caucasian woman, both want to adopt Rose and the adoption lawyer, Jo, gets stuck in the middle.

The plays were chosen by Rob Urbinati, the director of new play development at Queens Theatre in the Park as part of the Immigrant Voices Project - an attempt to showcase talented minority playwrights. "We wanted to do a distinct play program that spoke to Queens," he said. "IVP honored the demographics and diversity."

The plotlines of all three upcoming plays are firmly rooted in a racially diverse (and often racially charged) New York, the authors contend.

"Off-White," Wong said, "was mostly inspired by a hotly debated thread I read on an Internet message board about how Asian women are desirable in the singles scene, but Asian men are not." At one point in the play, Ian, a gay male, is accused of purposefully dating non-Asian men.

"Eclipse" was based on a real life incident in the early 1990s when a Chinese immigrant - a street portrait artist - was killed. Wong wrote "Eclipse" shortly after the murder, but the script was deemed too short for production at the time. He rediscovered the play recently and wrote a companion piece for it: "Off-White." Despite their juxtaposition, however, the two tackle entirely different themes, Wong said.

Maog said he was drawn to Wong's play because of its flow and interconnected nature. "Each moment," he said, "truly hinges and is entwined to the next. The challenge, of course, lies in clarity - how to convey these juxtapositions or collisions into vivid moments." And this elucidation, he said, hinges upon the audience's willingness to take a leap of faith.

"In 'Off-White,' three stools embody two different locales, sometimes simultaneously. Theater cannot compete with the [realism of film], so metaphor becomes our greatest currency," Maog said.

According to Thomas, "My Secret Language of Wishes" was founded on her experiences as an interracial American; her father is a black West African and her mother is a Caucasian Brazilian. Speaking about race, both in regard to adoption and to life in general, Thomas said "those things are not necessarily what matters." The play, she added, also deals with what it means to be a woman, in the sense that all its characters are female, straight or gay.

Both plays, Urbinati said, were extraordinary. "I was surprised by their quality, but also by how different they were."

Thomas contended that the uniqueness of her play lay in its a multicultural, all-female cast. "It feels like a very feminine kind of play," she said. For that reason, she continued, "I really wanted a woman director. My husband's a great director, but he's a man, and it's a different mood to have a woman there. Claire truly seems to understand the play well. And just being a woman, she has a feminine feel for the character and issues."

Annually, Urbinati estimated, IVP receives 200 manuscripts, of which he normally chooses four. Two plays, "Trial by Water" and "The Ride," were exhibited in their own play readings in early March and mid April.

The project, however, does not necessarily elicit works from amateurs. The resumes of those involved in these two play readings are ample proof.

Wong has an MFA from Columbia University and is currently a member of the Queens Playwright Group. In addition to writing manuscripts, he writes music and theater reviews. He has also had minor acting roles. Maog started out by performing in San Francisco's Mime Troupe, but soon thereafter began directing. Since 2000, he has worked on many projects in the metropolitan area. In May, he will serve as a U.S. delegate to the 31st International Theatre Institute/UNESCO World Theatre Congress in Manila.

Thomas majored in theater, with a concentration on acting, at Marymount Manhattan College and minored in creative writing. She had acted for 10-15 years before she started also writing plays, which she said she has been doing for eight to 10 years now. "My Secret Language of Wishes" is her third play to be shown in public.

But despite their accomplishments, both Wong and Thomas agree that financial strain is nearly intrinsic in being a playwright.

Having racked up "quite a credit card bill" from writing non-stop with the assistance of an agent, Wong was forced to take a few years off to get himself out of debt. "It is the hardest thing in the world," he said. "In order to persevere as an artist, you must think of it as a job - not just creating the art but marketing and publicizing yourself. That is why so many successful young playwrights are from well-off families."

The story was not so different for Thomas. As a single mother with a daughter in school, she found that theater was not a stable enough source of income. "[I] had to take very depressing full-time jobs. I hated to pay the rent and had no time to audition or really pursue acting," she said. "I think playwriting began because my creative energy needed an outlet."

Therefore, it is important that IVP aims to find a venue in another borough for the plays to go into full production. "We don't want a play to open and close at Queens Theatre. We try to find a theatre in Manhattan interested in the co-production of it, so that it has a life outside of Queens," Urbinati said.

According to Wong, "it is also rare for a theater that is not a niche theatre like Pan Asian Rep or Repertorio Espa–ol to focus on minority writers." Pointing to statistics about Asian playwrights, he concluded, "I don't like to categorize writers into groups, but really, [the showcasing of] one major play by an Asian writer per season is pathetic. So I say more power to Queens Theatre in the Park."