Amy Tan's acclaimed
novel "The Joy Luck Club" has woven the warm and intriguing stories of four
Chinese mothers and their daughters for readers of all generations today and
still to come…
This fall, the Pan
Asian Repertory Theatre revives Susan Kim's stage-adaptation of The Joy Luck Club with a cast brimming
with new and seasoned Asian-American actors, eager to bring this cherished tale
to life.
BroadwayWorld.com's
own News Desk Editor, Eugene Lovendusky, had the unique opportunity of chatting
with the four "daughters" of The Joy Luck
Club – Han Nah Kim (Jing Mei), Rosanne Ma (Rose), Tina Chilip (Waverly) and
Sacha Iskra (Lena) – to discuss their shared
experience in this play and the important role of Asians in American theatre…
Eugene Lovendusky:
Thank you all for taking a moment out of your busy day to talk to
BroadwayWorld. I'm a big fan of this book, as a matter of fact. I come from San Francisco, where it's very culturally
diverse, and read the novel back in high school – the material is so adaptable!
Tell me a little bit about the storytelling in this novel and how it translates
to the stage.
Han Nah Kim:
Susan Kim (playwright) says the book is more vignettes and little stories, and
how she adapted it to a play was by just adding a structure. The characters definitely have a journey that
they go through, even though some are more fulfilled than others. She tried to encapsulate and put that down on
paper in a very succinct way…rather than with all the narrations.
Sacha Iskra: She
gave us a very good frame to work in, so when we get up to do the story-telling
– of course with the direction and working with everyone – it's almost like
dancing because we flow with the stories. And because Amy Tan wrote something
that is very fluid, even though in the books it's in vignettes, it's very
stage-able. Doing the story live as actors on stage is almost easy, something
we can breathe into.
Eugene: Is it done in vignettes?
Han Nah: It is…
but what is narration in the book comes out as subtext. It was interesting, going back to the book
after reading the play. Tina and I were
talking about filling in transitions with some of the ideas of the book …
Sacha: We're
lucky to have a play where we have a book to go to as well, and a playwright
who gets to work with the author!
Eugene: This book is about four daughters and
mothers from different provinces of China. But each of you has your own separate
national backgrounds, which is very intriguing for this show. What is your national origin, what do you
call home or where were you all raised?
Rosanne Ma: I was
reared in California
and born there. Both of my parents were
born in Southern China. My mother was reared
in Hong Kong and spent most of her life
there. My father was from a small
village called (translated) White Sands, really small.
Tina Chilip: I
was born and raised in the Philippines
but I'm ethnic-Chinese. Both my parents
are Chinese-born and raised in the Philippines as well. In a way, the
journey of the daughters trying to find their Chinese identity as Americans, I
took it in a different context: being Chinese born and raised in the Philippines. It's very similar in trying to find identity.
The daughters talk about wanting to be more American, and as they grow older
wanting to find their Chinese roots. I found that to be true in myself, wanting
to be more Filipino, but later on wanting to find your Chinese self.
Sacha: I am
pretty much Filipino, but my mother's side of the family has a background in Spain
and my father's mom is Chinese, who spoke Cantonese and Mandarin. I don't know a lick of either; or Spanish
either. I speak Tagalog. For me, this play is really interesting because
my grandparents had to go through what it was like in the Philippines
during occupation. So when they found out I was doing this
story, they were very quiet. There's something about Asians – and I don't want
to make a blanket statement – but we don't like to talk about certain
things. Tina and I were saying: "Oh my
gosh, the interviewer's coming, what can we tell him?" [laughs] Amy Tan has
written this wonderful story that says more than we feel we are able to
tell. That's why Asians can be the Kings
and Queens of Subtext. We live it. It's
written on our faces but we're very good at hiding it too. This story got my family talking more about what they saw. Not all of it was pretty. The Chinese-side of the family had to
reconcile that, when my grandfather married a Chinese woman. I told them "I'm
doing a Chinese story, and I'm proud of it."
