Ideas and stereotypes about Asian American women fall into two categories: the deceitful and domineering Dragon Lady or the submissive China Doll. This is especially true in the theatrical arts where representation of Asian American women is often the stereotypical China Doll, submissive and sacrificial. Think Ms. Saigon and Madam Butterfly. I was surprised to see a play titled Dragon Lady from an Asian American performer who is an activist and proud feminist. She must be aware of the baggage from that title. As the play progresses, we learn Dragon Lady is an apt title because the symbol of the dragon holds familial significance. And as Dragon Lady was a term imposed by white culture, an Asian American woman reclaiming the term so unapologetically is indeed powerful.
This current iteration of Dragon Lady, performed at the Jones Playhouse Theater, is its most decorative yet, complete with a set and a three-person band behind the curtains. Earlier versions were austere, with just the actress using her body and voice. This is a one woman play and the woman is Sara Porkalob, writer, actor, and singer. She is a powerhouse and triple threat! Throughout the 1.5-hour play she embodies 30 characters, without a costume or hair change. Ms. Porkalob slips easily in and out of characters with a mere change in speech pattern, intonation, raised eyebrow, or bent back. In the small intimate space of the Jones Playhouse, her singing voice is Broadway quality, dramatic and show-stopping. She has the ability to switch from ballads to rap to jazz tunes. Never once in the 1.5-hours does her energy waiver. So convincing are her performances that during a sad scene I was tearing up because her inhabitance of the five characters was so distinctive and unique, I forgot they were played by the same actress.
The play is an homage to Porkalob’s grandmother Maria. It chronicles her difficult upbringing in the Philippines after the death of her parents; she ends up working for a nightclub where she becomes pregnant at 19 with Sara’s mother. She meets a young American-Hungarian military man who marries and brings Maria and her baby daughter to America. In this scene where new husband brings Maria home to meet his mother, Maria is greeted with hostility and her mother-in-law insults her to her husband, not even addressing Maria. She does not take well to this and reminds her new husband that she is his wife and does not deserve this treatment. Right here, this scene is the game changer because this is not the norm. There are many stories about Asian war brides marrying white American men, who bring them back to small town America for the first time. In these many stories, the audience gets the sense that the woman does not understand what is said about her. She hangs her head in silence and sometimes shame. But Maria is different. She does not resign her worth to others. Maria is an Asian woman with agency and how she choose to use that agency makes her more than a stereotype. She is fully human, soft and hard, complicated and flawed.
The heart and soul of this musical are the scenes with Maria’s children, children who have to deal with the consequences of their mother’s actions. The play spans 40 years with 3 generations of the Porkalob family. We get a glimpse of Maria as a young girl, as a young mother, and finally as a grandmother. Porkalob’s depiction of her uncles, aunts, and mother when they were children left many audience members teary eyed, especially as the youngest son reveals his deepest fear, wondering “if only I behaved better…”. The pain, resilience, and ingenuity of these latchkey kids is familiar to many of us. Their resentment reveals itself in snarky and side comments when the mood dips. Like most resentment that separates parent and children, it is often the grandchildren who can bridge this separation. Without the baggage of unmet expectations, the granddaughter, in this case, is open and attentive to her grandmother’s life story. And attention must be paid to Maria’s life story.
Dragon Lady is too entertaining to glimmer briefly only to be anthologized in textbooks on Asian American Theater. It deserves a wider audience and in 2018, it will get that chance. Ms. Porkalob will debut her play at the American Repertory Theater in Boston. Go see Dragon Lady now and you too can say you knew of Sara Porkalob’s work back when she was an emerging nebula.