IT’S hard to be critical of “Yel low Face” when its play wright, David Henry Hwang, is so tough on himself. This semi-autobiographical comedy/drama from the author of “M. Butterfly” features Hwang as its narrator and main character, and he doesn’t make himself look good at all.
Unfortunately, the self-effacement of his self-portrait is offset by the self-absorption inherent in this rambling work, which uses the controversy over the casting of the Broadway production of “Miss Saigon” as a springboard for a freewheeling rumination about race, cultural stereotypes and Hwang himself.
The dispute, you may recall, concerned the casting of Caucasian actor Jonathan Pryce as the Asian Engineer. Hwang, by then renowned for becoming the first Asian-American to have a play produced on Broadway, spearheaded the highly vocal opposition to what was referred to as “yellow face.”
The first part of the play amusingly re-creates the tangle, with Hwang, known here as DHH (the excellent Hoon Lee), interacting with theatrical figures who were either involved with or who weighed in on the issue, including Post theater columnist Michael Riedel, who was writing for another publication at the time.
Things become more complicated when the story shifts to Hwang’s flop play inspired by the same subject, “Face Value,” in which a white actor (Noah Bean) poses as Eurasian – he claims to have Siberian blood – to advance his career.
Also figuring in the story is Wen Ho Lee, the scientist accused of espionage; a scandal involving the bank headed by Hwang’s father; and Asian-American discrimination in general.
If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is, with the playwright’s incisive points becoming lost in a morass of real and invented plot elements that never quite jibe.
Director Leigh Silverman has provided a fast-paced production that helps simplify matters, and the ensemble, which includes five performers playing a dizzying number of multiple roles, is absolutely terrific. But it’s hard not to hope, after “Face Value” and now this overly self-involved effort, that Hwang has finally gotten this subject, worthy as it is, out of his system.
YELLOW FACE
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., at Astor Place; (212) 967-7555. Through Dec. 23.