Theater in Chinatown used to mean gangland shoot-outs – both on the screen and in the balcony of the neighborhood’s many movie theaters, which had names like Sun Sing and Pagoda, and were hangouts for the local gangs starting in the 1960s. None of those theaters still exist. “Music Palace was the last one standing,” closing on June 30th, 2000, explains a storyteller and performer named Mandarin Wu, one of the five terrific cast members in “Catching Silhouettes,” a different kind of theater. Part immersive, site-specific theater, part walking tour, part dance-theater, it’s subtitled “An Oral History Street Performance Project.” The show is produced by the Museum of Chinese in America, and makes extensive use of MOCA’s oral history archives.
Theater in Chinatown will take on a new meaning, if Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li has his way. He is the director of “Catching Silhouettes”, and also has the title of Director of Performance, Storytelling and Community at MOCA, whose building at 215 Centre Street is in the midst of a capital campaign that includes the addition of a physical theater.
In the meantime, MOCA’s theater is in the streets of Chinatown this month. “Catching Silhouettes” introduces us to past and present landmarks along a half-mile route, from Buddhist temples to Fujianese restaurants to the nondescript headquarters of the Asian Americans for Equality . It also showcases the five impressively talented performers who bring the people of Chinatown to life, in lightly dramatized scenes, dances, musical interludes, and monologues drawn directly from true stories.
The audience gathers at the statue of Confucius in Confucius Plaza, where we’re treated to a musical number based on a poem by Wang Ping entitled “Song of Calling Souls,” commemorating those immigrants who died when the Golden Venture ran aground in the Rockaway Boulevard in Queens in 1993. Later, Shan Y. Chuang tells us of the protest in 1975 over the absence of Asian workers in the construction of the towering Confucius Plaza, a public housing project primarily intended for the huge influx of new Chinese immigrants. We are offered Chinese snacks and brought inside Confucius Plaza’s Community Room, to re-create the experience of the defunct Chinatown movie theaters, the first and only time we’re all indoors, and seated.
Throughout the route, cast members take turns telling us a variety of stories. Timmy Ong, for example, portrays someone named Shengqiao, one of some 300 undocumented immigrants aboard the Golden Venture. “The water was very cold. You can’t really swim. The waves move you back, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I had my hand handcuffed on the bed.” Ong shows us how the detainees created folded-paper and papier-mâché objects “as gifts for our supporter” and to fight off the boredom and frustration, while the other cast members show us photographs of their creations.
Ong also portrays the wedding singer Huang Yun Xiu, who explains his arduous trip from China to New York in 1995 (“..I paid about $40,000 to $50,000, traveled through 10 countries…”) but his easy arrival (Because he was famous in China, he had already been hired to perform two show the night he arrived.) He had both a burgeoning career among the many wedding banquet restaurants in Chinatown and also ran a flower shop on Eldridge Street. Both careers have come to an end – the banquet restaurants, like the movie theaters, have disappeared — and Huang now works as a nurse and caregiver. That doesn’t stop Ong from singing like Huang in his heyday.
Ong also plays the cello, lugging it on his back through the tour, as accompaniment for the stories, often in concert with the clarinet played by Jeremy Rafal. Among the stories Ong told, like most of the other cast members, was his own personal story. Ong had a good corporate job in his native Malaysia, but gave it all up five years ago to get an MFA in Acting at The New School. He was excited, for about a month. Then: “What have I done to myself?” Now: “I am still rather uncomfortable here, but I have never been happier.”
The show ended in Seward Park, where we were shown a map with toy buildings – representing the movie theaters, the garment factories, the temples, the twin towers of the World Trade Center – that are no more. The evolution of Chinatown is an unavoidable theme of the show, and Ong transitions from character into tour guide: “All these establishments come and go. Here, it used to be a Jewish neighborhood. Before that, there were Irish and Italians. Then we had Chinese. Now, we see more hipsters moving in. But across the city, you see more satellite Chinatowns like Flushing and 8th Avenue in Brooklyn. In just this decade, Long Island City has become “Little Shanghai.” And Chinatown itself, for all its losses, is bigger than ever.
Catching Silhouettes
A production of the Museum of Chinese in America
Outdoors, from Confucius Plaza to Seward Park
Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through May 18
Running time: About 100 minutes
Tickets: $28
Original Concept by Al Límite Collective
Devised by Shan Y. Chuang, Nina Zoie Lam, Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li, Timmy Ong, Jeremy Rafal & Jiemin Yang
Directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li (MOCA’s Director of Performance, Storytelling & Community)
Co-Directed by Nina Zoie Lam
Performed by Shan Y. Chuang, Timmy Ong, Jeremy Rafal, Mandarin Wu and Jiemin Yang
