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“Yellowface: Portrayal of Asians in American Theatre”

See Also: Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood, Examples of yellowface

Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood defines “yellowface” as follows: Yellowface is a form of theatrical makeup used by performers to represent an Asian person.  

“Yellowface” can further be defined as: “the practice of white actors donning overdone face paint and costumes that serves as a caricatured representation of traditional Asian garb.”

.The practice of “Yellowface” is not only found in the history of Hollywood films but in American Theatre as well.

Miss Saigon

See Also: Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon, a musical with music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr. and book by Boublil and Schönberg, is an adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera “Madame Butterfly.”  Miss Saigon tells the story of a condemned romance involving an Asian woman and an American soldier set in the time of the Vietnam War.

When Miss Saigon premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London on September 20, 1980, English actor Jonathan Pryce wore heavy prosthetic eyelids and skin darkening cream in playing The Engineer, a French-Vietnimaese pimp.

Once the London production came to Broadway in 1990, Pryce was slated to reprise his role as The Engineer, causing a major rift in American theater circles and sparking public outcry. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang wrote a letter to the Actors’ Equity Association protesting this portrayal of a Eurasian character being played by a white actor.

Despite these protests, Pryce performed the Engineer to great acclaim and Miss Saigon became one of Broadway's longest-running hits.

The Mikado

See Also: The Mikado

The Mikado is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. In Setting the opera in Japan, Gilbert had the opportunity to satirize British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese and to soften the impact of his pointed satire of British institutions.

Several productions of The Mikado have been criticized for the use of Yellowface in their casting: New York (2004 and 2015) , Los Angeles (2007 and 2009), Boston (2007), Austin (2011), Denver (2013), and Seattle (2014).

In 2014, The Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society cast all 40 Asian roles with White actors, with the exception of two Latino actors.

Recently in November of 2015, The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players production of The Mikado which featured a company of mostly Caucasian actors playing characters of Japanese descent, had been canceled due to severe backlash from the Asian community. In an interview with NYGASP artistic director Albert Bergeret, he explained that out of the  40 members of the company, only two actors are of legitimate Asian descent.

The King & I

See Also: The King and I

The King and I is a musical by  Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. Based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, the story of The King & I works to illustrate the clash of Eastern and Western cultures by relaying the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. The relationship between the King and Anna is marked by conflict and constant bickering throughout the musical, as well as by a love that neither can confess.

The Dallas Summer Musical’s production of Rodger and Hammerstein’s “The King & I” has caused recent controversy in the casting of a caucasian actor as King Mongkut. In an open letter to Dallas Summer Musicals, the AAPAC criticizes the choice, saying “the casting of a white King dramaturgically undermines a story about a clash between Western and Eastern cultures;" moreover, "Asian impersonation denies Asians our own subjecthood. It situates all the power within a Caucasian-centric world view.”