What David Henry Hwang Taught Me About Failure

On 11/20/24, I went to see the play, Yellow Face, on Broadway for two reasons: 1) David Henry Hwang is one of my favorite playwrights and 2) It's a farce, and I expected to laugh—which I did (loudly) throughout the production.

What I hadn't expected was to walk away with some masterclass lessons on life—and craft.

In the play (says its website), the actor, Daniel Dae Kim (best known for the TV show, Lost), stars "as an Asian American playwright who protests yellowface casting in the blockbuster musical Miss Saigon, only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play." In real life, David Henry Hwang had led such a protest against Miss Saigon, before its (extremely successful) Broadway?debut.

Going in, I knew Yellow Face was a bit meta. But I didn't realize just how much the play drew from Hwang's own life and real events—including his father's life.?

Yellow Face simultaneously criticizes cultural appropriation while winkingly skewering it, by having actors of all genders and backgrounds playing characters from genders and races that they are "not." (Think: A Black woman playing former NYC mayor, Ed Koch.)??

There?are so many themes and subplots going on in Yellow Face (from Dae Kim's "playwright" being named DHH—as a stand-in for Hwang; to anti-Asian racism; to the real-life regulatory investigation of a successful bank Hwang's father had founded, based on transactions it had with the Chinese government. No charges were filed, but it led to Hwang's immigrant father, once an ultra-American patriot, chalking his bank's investigation up to racism and the perpetual outsider status of Asians, where Chinese-Americans are questioned on?if their allegiance is to China—or to America?).

The themes in Yellow Face were heavy and many. Yet, I compared Hwang's light and dexterous handling of what could easily have been not just a messy blob, but a hot mess, of a play to a cat scaling a tree. When a cat scales a tree, it seems so easy. But while some cats can gracefully go up a tree, some get stuck and cannot come down. However, David Henry Hwang—as a master playwright—with feline grace, not only goes up the tree with his play, but is fully in control, and can easily go down, horizontally, and diagonally. Or so I thought: Until I realized that what made Hwang succeed so brilliantly with Yellow Face is the precedent of spectacular failure.

Hwang's first Broadway play, M. Butterfly, made him the first Asian-American to win a Tony for playwriting. In contrast, his second play—Face Value, which launched in 1993 and was the first incarnation of? Yellow Face—was such a gigantic flop, it closed during?previews and never?made it to opening night. A play closing during previews isn't unprecedented, but incredibly rare. Critics referred to Hwang's second play as M. Turkey—its failure so bad, so dismal compared to his spectacularly successful Broadway debut, M. Butterfly.?

I read that the more Hwang tried to rewrite and repair Face Value in real time as it was?failing and flailing in the early?90s, the worse it got. Then: Splat. Now, here we are in 2024, with Yellow Face playing to packed houses and glowing reviews from the most eminent theater critics.

As a writer, I know that what?Hwang has pulled off is both the trick and hallmark of highest craft: To make what he does?seem seamless. When people see craft and say: "Oh, I can do?that"—they cannot. Not without development—or assistance. Or unless one is?truly a prodigy. Craft makes it look easy. But with craft, by true craftspeople, what looks like it may have taken five minutes to do (because the stuffing and stitching are not visible to the naked eye) may have taken five hours or 500. But such arduous, painstaking work should never be obvious to others outside of one's craft. The?only duty of those who consume what you create is to experience emotions like pleasure and wonder from what you've created. The heavy lift entailed should never be visible.

So, along with the pleasure and wonder I experienced from Yellow Face, my other (surprising)?key takeaway was Hwang's work as a masterclass in second acts. Yellow Face is what a comeback—and a clapback to critics—looks like, and a potent lesson for creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone who struggles—be it with failure or process.??

Failure—while humbling—is rich, and filled with nutrition and growth.

David Henry Hwang, in an interview in The New York Times, said it best:?“Having a play close in previews on Broadway would generally be considered one of the worst things that can happen to your career, and it is, but I survived it,” he said. “The worst thing happened to me,” he added. “And I’m still here."