LOS ANGELES — Sometimes theater can open our eyes to different experiences, advancing our understanding of one another, but at times, it’s had the opposite effect, which is what playwright Preston Choi set out to address in his new play “This is Not a True story.”
“I wanted to do it after seeing a lot of racist musicals and plays growing up,” he explained one night before a performance. “Like Miss Saigon, Anything Goes and Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
The play, which is a comedy, examines three characters whose stories all end tragically. Two are from the stage. CioCio from Puccini’s opera “Madame Butterfly” and musical theater’s Kim from “Miss Saigon.” Both characters fall in love with white men and ultimately commit suicide.
“It’s sort of like their death built his character,” Choi said. “I wanted to find a way to sort of give them another dimension or show a side of them that’s been forgotten.”
The two women, written by white men, fall into a particular stereotype that Choi says the arts have helped perpetuate for decades.
“I think it’s sort of colloquially known as the butterfly trope,” he explained. “It’s this sort of like submissive ingenue woman who…longs for a better life and this man offers…a way out, and there’s this sort of torrid romance between them but it usually ends with her death and him experiencing great grief and ‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful?’”
The third character who finds herself in his play’s afterlife-type setting is Takako Konishi, who is not fictional although her story has been fictionalized. In reality, she lost her job in Japan and traveled to Fargo — a place she had previously visited with her married American former lover — where she, too, ultimately committed suicide. Her death inspired an urban legend that was later turned into the film “Kumiko the Treasure Hunter.”
Rosie Narasaki plays Takako. She hadn’t seen the movie until she began rehearsing the role.
“There’s something attractive about the fake version of the story, because it’s an adventure, and it involves treasure and the snow and everything,” she said. “The real version is actually, I think, a lot sadder.”
In addition to being an actress, Narasaki is also a playwright. As the daughter of two actors, she has always been well-aware of the butterfly trope and other Asian stereotypes in the arts and how damaging they’ve been for her community.
“I think that’s actually part of the reason I even like became a writer in the first place,” she explained. “I mean, because when you’re an actor, you’re often forced to play those roles.”
Her father, she says, was often cast in martial arts settings. Her mother would be hired to play nurses and manicurists. Things are getting better, she says, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. “Those stereotypes are still very much part of our lives as actors. And I think that’s part of the reason I’ve turned to writing… It’s one of the ways to reclaim your agency.”
“This is Not a True Story” is produced by Artists at Play, a theater collective dedicated to exploring the Asian American experience, in collaboration with The Latino Theater Company. This is Choi’s first time working with the company.
“They’re cultivating the Asian American theater scene,” he said, “supporting new artists and really allowing artists … to pursue this passion, but also feel support at the same time and not feel like they’re like lost in the wind.”
“It’s like you’re part of a community,” he added.
Not that every show by an Asian American writer has to be an educational exploration of race, but Choi does feel like theater has played a part in these misrepresentations and tropes and theater should also play a part in correcting the record.
“I think if you really love an art form or a craft, you sort of have to hold it to a higher standard,” Choi explained. “And I think I do love theater and what it’s capable of, and it’s capable of beautiful community building things, but also harm and misinformation. So I think it’s sort of like taking it to task and be like, ‘I love you so much. I must criticize you for what you’ve done.’”