Even if you’re lucky to have a play on Broadway like ‘Chinglish,’ you don’t necessarily earn enough off it to support the years it takes to get there. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
You can’t be a playwright without believing there’s an audience for adventurous work. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
With theatre, we all agree to suspend our disbelief about so many things, but not about race. It’s totally OK to have one actor playing five roles – people are willing to believe that. But they won’t believe it if there’s a black or an Asian kid who has white parents. What does that say about us? David Henry Hwang Read Quote
I knew I was Chinese, but growing up, it never occurred to me that that had any particular implication or that it should differentiate me in any way. I thought it was a minor detail, like having red hair. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we’re not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn’t put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn’t have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
There’s something about China and its rush to capitalism that I find confusing. At the same time, we live in an America where capitalists oppose any government interference with free markets, while in China you have a very controlled, state-planned market where economic growth is better than ours. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after they’re dead. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
My first plays were amazingly bad, but I had a teacher who thought I had promise, and he kept working with me. I finally went to a summer workshop before my senior year with people like Sam Shepard and Maria Irene Fornes who encouraged me to write from my subconscious, and suddenly all this material about culture clash came out. David Henry Hwang Read Quote
