ASIANS IN WESTERN DRAMA: THE CHANGING FACE OF DEPICTION - Research Paper Example

Asians in the Western Drama: The Changing Face of the Depiction It was quite late in the nineteenth century that the rich culture of Asia appealed Western playwrights to bring these foreign characters in their dramas and plays. It was on account of the entry of the western traders who brought the elements of these cultures back to their native lands (Frazier, 2005). Though Asian theaters and plays were significantly marked the history of the continent yet the appearance of these characters in a changed and alien scenario gave birth to a new phase of drama (Dimitrova, 2004).

The portrayal of the Asian characters Post colonial approach brought the literatures of the two poles very closer and today we can find an Asian playing the role of the protagonist or the main supportive character in comparison to the early days of the century where an Asian character was mere a symbol of unwanted occupation (King, 2007). One of the examples of such plays is “Yellow Face” in which the appearance of Jonathan Pryce; a white British man as Asian character has been a matter of controversy for over a year and Hwang has to face number of projections and accusations of angry white race who strongly protested for the enactment of Pryce as an Asian character.

The purpose of my paper is to primarily focus on the appearance of the Asian characters in Western plays but Yellow Face is a clear example of what this type of play has to go through in contemporary society before it appears as a theatrical performance (Winston, 1998).In the beginning of this experimental genre, the focus of the western writer was primarily upon the struggles of Asians in different parts of the Western world and secondary touch was given to the Asian life style and homeland traditions (Walker and Wise, 2005).

Even before that masks were used by the white actors for enacting the role of an Asian which proved that they were undesired people for West. The strong conventions of the theatre have been challenged by the entry of these Asian characters in the Western dramas (Cardullo, 2010). These plays often bring a challenging question of identity crises and depict double sides of the same picture. Today, an Asian stands for the representation of a whole entity and cannot be taken or considered in isolation.

These characters usually are the spokesperson of the writer and say what a writer feels to say though his writings. These address the social issues and leave the audience with the open questions, the answer of which are very close to them and may be found all around (Lei, 2006).Some of these depictions are biographical and reflect the story of a real life being in the world by the Asian- Western parents. This identity crisis addresses different ethnicities and calls many traditions in question.

An Asian character is the symbolic of traditional mindset with the yearning urge of exploring the western world (Li, 2007). Western playwrights deliberately use these symbolic characters to reveal the impact of amalgamation of the two different cultures, societies and code of conducts (Lima, 2005). It also leads to the result of the question what can be the ultimate point if one controls the other’s identity or if they both co-exist peacefully (Singh, 1992). This is in fact a provision to audience to show their response to these familiar incidents and events.

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Palgrave Macmillan. 2006. Print. Li, Kay. Bernard Shaw and China: Cross-cultural Encounters. 1st Edition. University Press of Florida. 2007. Print. Lima, Robert. Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theatre and Drama. The University Press of Kentucky. 2005. Print. Singh, Avtar. Perspectives on Western Drama. Stosius Inc./ Advent Books Division. 1992. Print. Walker, Craig and Jennifer Wise. The Broadview anthology of Drama, concise Edition: Plays from the Western Theatre. Broadview Press. 2005. Print. Winston, Joe.

Drama, Narrative and Moral Education. 1st Edition. Routledge. 1998. Print.