ANDY DRACHENBERG: How did you first get involved with this production?
CANDACE CHONG: I met David (Henry Hwang) when I came under the ACC Grant in 2004. He was the dramaturg for a new play at the Lark Theatre, and I started talking with him about theatre in New York. We became friends quickly. He’s very generous, and when he began searching for a translator for his play Chinglish, he thought of me. He knows I am a Chinese playwright, and I think he was looking for a translator who had a little bit of theatre background.
AD: Your work on Chinglish is a bit different from your typical playwriting. What has that experience been like?
CC: When I work on my own script, I feel a little bit like I’m playing God of that world. When I’m working on translations, I am more interested in looking to find what David is trying to deliver to the audience. His language is different than mine, but the lines and dialogue created by him in English… I’m trying to find the right voice for those in Mandarin. I don’t want it to sound ‘translated.’ It should be smooth, and balanced. It’s very, very different.
AD: How do you tell people what Chinglish is about?
CC: It’s a very new, interesting piece. I believe it’s the first bilingual production to use Chinese and English on Broadway, and I think that’s a bold idea. Almost a fourth of the dialogue is in Mandarin! I would say this is a play about communication and understanding cultural differences.
AD: Have you experienced ‘chinglish’ in real life?
CC: Of course! I’m always talking in Chinglish! Especially the first time I was in New York. I remember once there was something wrong with the internet on my laptop. I was using a service to fix it where a technician takes over your mouse through a program from somewhere else and helps fix it. I remember we had just connected, and on the phone he stopped and went ‘This is all in Chinese!’ I had to try and use my chinglish to help tell him what everything said. Usually, I think the problem would take about five minutes to solve the problem… We were on the phone for at least half an hour.
AD: In working with David as a translator and being a playwright yourself, do you feel your playwriting voice had opportunities to reveal itself?
CC: That isn’t something I was trying to do. The scripts that I write are very different from David’s. When translating Chinglish, I was always imagining “If David could speak Chinese, what would he like to say here?” Since we have been working on this for over two years, I feel I have been getting to know David’s rhythm and use of language. Although there are always some words that you cannot find the Chinese equivalent for, I haven’t been trying to translate it literally, but how in Chinese culture that situation would be expressed.
CC: When translating Chinglish, I was always imagining “If David could speak Chinese, what would he like to say here?”
AD: What has the writing process been like on this show?
CC: You cannot imagine how crazy the working process has been. Back during the workshop, David would rewrite through midnight, and then text me to do the translations. Then, I had to translate all night and text the person who formatted timing both languages for the script. We were all exhausted! Now, we’ve gotten used to the pattern and rhythm of it.
AD: What do you hope audiences take away from “Chinglish?”
CC: I hope everyone has a wonderful night with a lot of laughter. I hope they find the show funny, entertaining, and meaningful. I hope people can see language isn’t a barrier for communication (when you try hard enough!). Sometimes when you speak the same language, people don’t communicate very well and don’t understand each other. I think that’s one of the things this show brings out.
AD: Tell us about your upcoming play The Wild Boar at the 2012 Hong Kong Arts Festival.
CC: It is a play exploring the general self-censorship in Hong Kong. The way that people write and the subject matter has seemed to change in Hong Kong. As a writer myself, I think this self-censorship is a bad thing for us. We don’t have an army or a government saying ‘you can do this, not that,’ but there is a sort of pressure. For example, two years ago there was a play about the incident on June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square. It used to be totally okay to write anything. However, during that production, the cast started to get phone calls with a sort of uncomfortable pressure to them. I am wondering why these sort of things happen. We used to enjoy the freedom of speech, and we shouldn’t let go of this privilege easily.
AD: You also have been working on the libretto of an opera we’ve been reading about recently, ‘Dr. Sun Yat-Sen.’ Can you give us an update on the show?
CC: When I was first commissioned to write Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, I didn’t think about whether it would perform around China. We didn’t want to be affected by those kinds of things, and we made an agreement to write what we thought the opera should be. So, I had to write something about this historical figure in Hong Kong, and I had to find the story. Honestly speaking, I don’t know the real reason behind it being cancelled– I wasn’t in any meetings to hear why. Whether this is political censorship, I couldn’t say. What disappointed me, however, is that they promised to do this piece. No matter what the reason in behind the cancellation, it was cancelled three weeks before it was to begin. This has been a precious experience for me. Now, I truly appreciate my opportunity to speak freely in Hong Kong. If something is scheduled there, I know it is going to happen. The only time something will be cancelled is if there is a typhoon.
CANDACE CHONG (Translator) is a recipient of the Best Artist Award (Drama) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and the winner of four Hong Kong Drama Awards (Best Script) for Alive in the Mortuary (2003), Shall We Go to Mars (2004), The French Kiss (2006) and Murder in San Jose (2009). Her plays have been translated and presented in Seoul, Tokyo, Macao, Singapore, and Shanghai, and her first commission as librettist, for the opera Dr. Sun Yat-sen, was selected as part of New York City Opera’s VOX: Contemporary American Opera Lab in May and will receive its world premiere this fall in Beijing and Hong Kong. Ms. Chong is a prolific translator of stage work, and her translations include Titus Andronicus, Betrayal and The Shape of Things, among many others. Her upcoming play, Wild Boar, will premiere at the 2012 Hong Kong Arts Festival.