Drumming Up Success

This month, Reyes directs his first show for Mu, a revival of the company’s 1999 hit, Circle Around the Island, in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio. It’s a coming-of-age story, told using Hawaiian music and hula-inspired movement, about a boy whose father dies.

Reyes is fortunate he was introduced to the Twin Cities via an acting job with the Guthrie (he moved here from New York). Otherwise, he says, it would have been harder to get roles because of his ethnicity. “How many times have you seen an Asian Willy Loman?” he says.

For Jeany Park, a Korean Canadian, Mu has been an indispensable resource. In 2003, Mu produced Falling Flowers, her play about the World War II–ravaged Korean comfort women. This past January, the History Theatre produced 100 Men’s Wife, Park’s play about a Chinese woman who immigrated to Minnesota in 1920s. “Mu was one of the first theaters I worked with when I moved here,” she says. “With Mu, every season I could pretty much count on a role being available for me.” In addition to acting with Mu, she performed with the Guthrie in last year’s The Falls and will be in its upcoming Boats on a River. She says that because the Guthrie’s associate artistic director, John Miller-Stephany, saw her perform with Mu every year, he saw her work progress. Reyes, Park, and others remain the exception for Asian-American actors here, however, not the rule.

The dynamics are changing slowly, but, says Reyes, “it’s also very important for Asian-American playwrights and theater artists to make work about themselves and specifically for themselves.” That being said, Mu’s audiences are, on average, 70 percent white, which speaks to both Mu’s successes—blending Asian and Western art forms in a unique way—and its obstacles—getting its target audience, Asian Americans, into seats.

According to 2005 census data, approximately 4.3 percent of the nation’s population are Asian-American, making them the third largest minority group in the country. The Twin Cities has one of the largest concentrations of Asian Americans in the interior of the country. As interactions with Asian Americans increasingly have become a part of everyday life, directors are becoming more comfortable casting Asian-American actors in major (read: typically “white”) roles. But the days of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly are not far behind us. As recently as 1991, Jonathan Pryce, who is white, headlined Miss Saigon, the Broadway adaptation of Butterfly, wearing bronzer and eye prostheses to make himself look Vietnamese.

When the professional actors’ union, Actors’ Equity Association, got wind of the casting decision, thousands of actors, Asian and otherwise, protested. According to Shiomi, Pryce’s name had marquee value—he’d played the same part in London with great success—and the promise of box office gold trumped political correctness. Pryce was excellent in the role and won a Tony for his performance. The good news is that when he left the cast of Miss Saigon, Broadway producers suddenly “discovered” hundreds of Asian- American actors who were capable of playing the part.

That Miss Saigon—as well as the recent Broadway revivals of Flower Drum Song and Pacific Overtures—generated mass interest (and millions of dollars in ticket sales) is further proof that Asian Americans and their stories are firmly ensconced within American culture.

Shiomi surveys Mu’s rehearsal room, looking tenderly at the daiko drums and plywood scenery pieces corralled in a dim corner. The only way for Mu to go is forward, and there is much work to be done. “I’m an optimist,” Shiomi says. He laughs softly, with characteristic understatement. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.” 

For information on Journey of the Drum (March 2–22) or Circle Around the Island (March 3–18), call 612-824-3396 or visit muperformingarts.org.

Jaime Kleiman is theater columnist for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.