Opening
Nights

PChinglish

ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 
938-0339, artswest.org. $15–$34.50. 
7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ends March 29.

The Chinese term guanxi, at a basic level, can refer to networking, connections, or relationships. More deeply, to a native speaker, it denotes the mutual responsibility owed between two people or groups. In the fast-growing China of David Henry Hwang’s 2011 comedy, it’s imperative to understand guanxi. And as protagonist Daniel (Evan Whitfield) warns, always bring a translator.

Dejected Daniel has fled recession-afflicted Cleveland to try his luck in in China, where he gets tangled in a web of guanxi and misunderstanding. Trying to sell bilingual signage, he’s pegged as being honest and innocent by Xi Yan (Kathy Hsieh), vice minister of a small—only four million!—inland city. She isn’t so innocent; and her gall, desire, and ambition will gradually be revealed. Daniel hires English tutor-cum-consultant Peter (Guy Nelson) to broker a deal between his firm and the Minister of Guiyang (Hing Lam). Daniel argues that his signs can help avoid embarrassing mistranslations—for instance, “deformed man toilet” for “handicap-accessible restroom” or “slip and fall carefully” for “be careful not to slip and fall.”

But enter guanxi. Peter and the minister have a secret past: Peter tutored the latter’s son and got him into the University of Bath. Peter is owed a favor, though the minister has no desire to award Daniel a contract. Meanwhile, harboring her own ulterior motives, Xi keeps Daniel in town by instigating an affair that will upset Guiyang’s current regime.

Chinglish is quick-paced, quick-witted, and brimming with humor. Nearly one-quarter of the play is spoken in Mandarin (with projected subtitles that we trust are being translated appropriately). What makes us chuckle, though, are the mistranslations and communication breakdowns among Hwang’s characters. It’s like that game of telephone, where children whisper a single phrase around the room until it’s mangled and unrecognizable.

Also being mediated from one idiom to another is some underlying pathos. Director Annie Lareau helps us to see genuine feeling between Daniel and Xi. Particularly poignant is the latter’s description of love and marriage—which to her can be mutually exclusive. Carey Wong’s minimalist set design lends further focus to such emotionally naked moments among the laughs.

Hwang, who earned a Tony for his 1988 M. Butterfly, isn’t out to write a serious meditation on U.S./Chinese economic relations. Nor is Chinglish a full-on farce. Rather, he relishes—as we do—scrambling words in a sentence just as much as misplacing an unassuming Ohioan into a foreign culture. Irfan Shariff

The Flick

12th Avenue Arts, 1620 12th Ave., wearenctc.org. $15–$35. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. Ends April 4.

Annie Baker’s Pulitzer winner—a magical mingling of Pinter pauses, Ibsenesque naturalism, and flashes of Pirandello—causes me cognitive dissonance. Written about the Twitter Generation, though with a run time exceeding two and a half hours, The Flick proves an imperative piece of modern American theater. Brevity is not one of its selling points, but the script takes chances that this New Century Theatre Company production, directed by MJ Sieber, does finally redeem.

Working in a dilapidated old single-screen movie theater, ushers Sam (Sam Hagen) and Avery (Tyler Trerise) and projectionist Rose (Emily Chisholm) discuss film, the transition from 35 millimeter to digital, and life in general. The three both crave authenticity and confront their full-of-shit contradictions. (The latter prove more entertaining than the former.)

On the stage facing us are rows of empty movie-theater seats where the play’s action—and inaction—occurs. As Sam and Avery clean up the mess left by filmgoers, their work is punctuated by an abundance of silences that are both irksome and utterly slice-of-life. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they just quietly do their job. A millennial David Mamet, Baker captures, like, the speech patterns of Generations X and Y, and keenly conveys the universal experiences—and rants—of peons in the service industry.

Even during moments of uncomfortable quiet, oozing with subtext, this cast elicits empathy. Hagen’s Sam, too old for his menial job at 35, inspires compassion upon declaring “I am that douche” (while comically confessing his double standard about bringing food into the theater). Chisholm’s green-haired nonconformist is all too human as she clumsily dances to seduce the pitifully passive and anxiety-laden Avery.

Like Rent, The Flick will not resonate with everyone. It’s a generational statement of sorts, in which Baker beautifully depicts the human condition through her trio of underachievers. Though a test of patience, the play is worthwhile for both ardent theater lovers and those theater-averse members of Generation Me, who so seldom find themselves represented onstage.

And about that stage: Andrea Bush’s set achieves an engulfing, painstakingly detailed, mise-en-scene effect. We enter what seems a real cinema, complete with posters and popcorn on the floor, and the sound design (by Rob Witmer and Evan Mosher) incorporates trailers from Jaws, American Graffiti, and other movies cited. We in our seats stare at the three discontented souls in theirs. Instead of a movie screen between us, there’s a mirror. Alyssa Dyksterhouse

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