Playwright Lloyd Suh looks back at history to analyze the American perception of Chinese immigration to the US in three different centuries, the 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s. Where are we now in 2025?
Afong Moy (Michelle Krusiec) came to the US to be exhibited in different cities as an exotic element, with the main purpose to advance the commercialization of Chinese goods in America. Since she didn’t speak any English, a Chinese man called Atung (Albert Park) was appointed her interpreter.
Moy’s job was to sit in a room surrounded by Chinese decor and eat with chopsticks, drink tea, walk around the room, and let the public take a closer look at her small feet, a curiosity that soon turned into fetishism. According to a New York Times article dated July 9, 1836, Moy’s feet measured 4 inches and an eighth in length, the same size of an infant. Adults could see the exhibition for 25 cents; children under 10 years, half price.
In Suh’s play, Moy sees her job as an ambassador of China to the US, hoping to bring both countries together in a romantic vision of cultural exchange and mutual understanding. Moy even gets to meet President Andrew Jackson. Despite the apparent good intentions of the parties involved, Suh examines human relationships through Moy’s history and the events that followed her questionable exhibition.
The presence of Chinese nationals and their descendants have been marked by periods of prosperity and instances of violence against their communities. Moy recounts the various acts of persecution that Chinese have endured in the US during the 1800s and 1900s, from Anti-Chinese riots to massacres, and outright discrimination in the form of draconian legislation.
Director Shinshin Yuder Tsai works with his actors to highlight the pain experienced by the Chinese community, but also their healing process and the integration into American society. By connecting the past and the present fluidly, Tsai interprets the play with a sense of urgency. Directing his actors to capture the hopes, yearnings, and disappointments of Moy and Atung, Tsai constructs the play to give voice to a latent desire of belonging, suppressed throughout the years, but always at the core of immigrant communities.
There are hard and soft feelings to learn from the past, but there is also a refreshing dose of comedy to lighten the mood. It’s an enjoyable play that rescues a figure that is not well-known, but who is a symbol of resilience and mystery.
Like Afong Moy in the play, the essence of The Chinese Lady is not just a history lesson. It’s also a projection into the past, the present, and the future; a projection where the main subjects are ourselves. How do we fit in the larger conversation of nativism and immigration?
The Chinese Lady
CHANCE THEATER
Cripe Stage at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center
5522 E La Palma Ave
Anaheim, CA 92807
Opening Night: Saturday, May 24 at 8 p.m.
Performances: May 24 – June 8, 2025
Friday 8 p.m., Saturday 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., Sunday 3 p.m.
Tickets: chancetheater.com
Written by Lloyd Suh
Directed by Shinshin Yuder Tsai
Cast: Michelle Krusiec and Albert Park
Creative team includes: Christopher Scott Murillo as Scenic Designer, Grace Kim Costume Designer, Masako Tobaru as Lighting Designer, Bebe Herrera as Stage Manager, Natalia Duong as Dramaturg, Jerry Zou and Nico Pang as Assistant Directors, Shinshin Yuder Tsai as Casting Director, and Fae Crane as Casting Associate.
Executive Producers Gus & Mary Chabre; Sophie & Larry Cripe; Samuel & Tammy Tang. Associate Producer Myrna Hamid. Supporting Producer Bruce Goodrich. 2025 Executive Season producer, Bette & Wylie Aitken, and Associate Season producer, The Family of Mary Kay Fyda-Mar.