ANDY DRACHENBERG: How did you first get involved with this show?
LARRY LEI ZHANG: The first information I received about it didn’t actually come from someone in the States! In the beginning of the play, we talk about guanxi – the relationship – and that’s what happened in my case. I was working in San Francisco, and one night I got a phone call from Shanghai asking where I was. They said there was a production in New York, asking if I wanted to go there. Jennifer [Lim] is actually a friend and a coworker who I did Hamlet with two years ago. I asked her if I could take a look at the script, as I was afraid that my English wasn’t good enough for Broadway. She said they were looking for a Chinese speaker, and I had to read the script right away. In the past couple years, I’ve been back to China a lot. I’m from China. I grew up in China and went to school in China. I know China very well, and when I read the script I really wanted to do this play.
I did a filmed audition first that I sent through email. A few days passed with no response and I called Chicago, but there were so many audition videos, they didn’t know who I was. I called Shanghai. They had gone back to Beijing. I called Beijing. Beijing called Chicago who called back to New York. The whole thing just becomes guanxi, so many passing interactions that go through all those twists and turns.
AD: What is Chinglish about?
LLZ: What we are doing is trying to make an understanding. You cannot change Chinese people. You cannot change the Western culture. But we need to understand each other. That’s what we’re doing, trying to make the gap smaller and easier for people to cross.
There are such strong differences between the East and the West that bringing the two together is hard. Billions of people with thousands of years of history, of course we have very strong traditions in the Eastern culture. When China’s door opened, lots of new concepts and values of everything came in. Some we accepted right away, but for others it’s not so easy. After I became a Chinese American, I started thinking more about the gap between the East and West, especially China and America. We cannot say which one is better or worse. They are just different.
One of the reasons I love this play, is that it shows exactly what is happening in modern China. Not Beijing or Shanghai where it’s already Westernized with foreigners and new things, but in a city like Guiyang, where they are slower to develop. There is more tradition and more of an authentic Chinese culture there.
AD: Who is your character in the story?
LLZ: I’m playing the cultural minister, a corrupt government official. But he is not a typical bad guy. I’ve found a lot of values in him. He’s actually a very loving person. He loves his family, his son, his job, and his art, which he has put his whole life into. He is a very human person. He has a very tough wife, a tough boss, and he is trying very hard to fit everything in.
As an actor, we have two personalities: the actor and the person. For the actor personality, we are following the director in how to play to the audience and tell the story. But for my character, I am actually Chinese. Which part am I playing? Am I presenting the right impression of a Chinese person? On one hand, I am presenting the script and playing the role. On the other hand, I need to find something that I really want to tell the audience about the Chinese culture. I believe this problem has been solved. I can combine the two, believing I am presenting this role correctly and believable.
AD: What sort of research/preparations have you done to get into the spirit of Chinglish?
LLZ: I have spent the last years in China. I also have my own business in a city very similar to Guiyang. In fact, it’s only a few hours away from Guiyang. I’ve dealt with all different kinds of ministers: culture, media, economy, and many other government officials. In the past years, I’ve dealt with all kinds of these characters in China. I am so familiar with those people. I know exactly what they wear, how they eat, talk in a meeting, smoke, how they drink. Some of my generation – friends, classmates – have already become ministers in those cities. For this character, I just drop myself in.
AD: What has the guanxi with the show been like?
LLZ: We work very well together. We are just like a family. That makes a very strong base that allows us to work easily together on stage. It lets us talk freely about whatever we want to talk about. The guanxi between the director and actor, the actors themselves, and even the audience and performers, was all very good.
AD: How does Chinglish correspond with the real world today?
LLZ: The most important thing is to be open and honest. We are not teaching people how to do business, but to see what the current issues and interconnections are in the world economy and how we should approach them. That’s a very important message. People are struggling in the United States, losing jobs. Many jobs are being lost to China as China grows stronger. But we have to look at what is actually going on in the hearts of the people as we approach these facts.
AD: What do you hope audiences take away from Chinglish?
LLZ: The Chinese have often thought of Broadway as an American spectacle, but this play is the right opportunity to show Chinese people a new Broadway show. I want to see more Chinese people in the audience. The Chinese population is not small, but inside a Broadway theatre, the Chinese audience doesn’t represent their population. This play reminds them how they will probably be involved in this world. It will attract them and change their theory, not just give them entertainment.
The Chinese story in the theatre is always a tragedy. It’s heavy. But Chinglish is not. It’s a comedy. It’s a very common, current, and happy comedy. The philosophy and entertainment of it is a great thing. I invite more Chinese people to come and see the industry.
LARRY LEI ZHANG(Minister Cai Guoliang). Regional: Don Juan Meets XiMenQing (San Francisco Chinese Culture Center), Blue & Black (San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts) and Long Day’s Journey into Night (Tao House Danville, CA). International: Yin and Yang at Shanghai Lyceum Theatre, Mei Lan Fang at Shanghai Majestic Theatre, and Mourning and Emperor Romulus at Shanghai Theatre Academy. He has appeared on screen in Eyesof Birch, Still, Golden Sand River and Over this Land, and on television in “Made in China,” “Legend of Bruce Lee,” “Tribe of Knowledge Youth” and “Ms. P.R.” Graduate of Shanghai Theatre Academy.