Making art involves time, passion, and vulnerability. When I'm onstage, I commit fully to the role and the production I've created with my director and cast. It's an electric experience doing live theatre. You're out there in front of hundreds of different audience members every performance, and everyone is breathing the same air, communally experiencing every moment together.
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Let me begin by stating that I love my Asian heritage, as well as my American heritage. I’m a first generation Vietnamese-American, and I’m proud of it. There is a cultural richness that I’ve been privileged to experience, because I embody two nationalities. My dual identity absolutely informs my attitudes, my behavior, and my art.
I will not deny that there are nuances I bring to a character, because I clearly look Asian and am ethnically Asian. There are times when this is necessary for a role, and there are times I choose to incorporate authentic qualities of my Asian heritage to enrich a role. For instance, years ago when I played Tinkerbell, I decided to employ Vietnamese as Tinkerbell’s secret fairy language. Many of the student audiences were diverse in race, and it was an incredible treat to have the Vietnamese kids express to me how special they felt because Tinkerbell was a Vietnamese fairy. Certainly, there are characters that I’ve loved playing because they are Asian and I’m able to share a narrative that is a specific cultural experience to a wider audience. And then there are times when my race has nothing to do with the narrative, and a director has chosen to cast me for my other unique qualities. I played a role of a strong, dogmatic, hard-nosed detective in my most recent production. The role demands fierceness with an underlying heartbreak, and it’s not race specific. I am also willing to admit that the casting choice was brilliant because of my Asian appearance. It added an extra layer of surprise to a plot twist about my character's physical contrast to her virtual avatar. One could also justify that the character had the Anglo-surname because she was adopted. I wore a classic business suit, reminiscent of the hard-nosed, female detectives that permeate Law & Order. So why is it that a theatre critic compared my character to a Maoist interrogator, pointedly citing my costume, which I’ll mention again was actually an Ann Taylor, size 2 Petite, classic suit? He saw a communist costume, when most audiences saw the standard dress code of an American detective. I believe he saw an Asian girl playing an aggressive interrogator, and immediately made the association to the Cultural Revolution and Maoist regime of China. Would he ever make that connection and associate a standard business suit to another culture if the role had been played by a white or African American actress? Most likely, he would not have drawn that parallel. Listen, I know and acknowledge and think it’s actually good that we are race conscious. Unless you are blind, you will always see race. I am livid, however, that people continue to draw cultural parallels when nothing in the design, acting choices, direction, or text suggests foreign influence. As American Theatre Magazine journalist Diep Tran points out," assumptions are hurtful and dangerous." It is racist to exoticize a character merely because the actor playing the role looks something other than white. There are plenty of Asian American police officers and detectives investigating horrible crimes in the U.S. and I’m fairly certain they conduct themselves with the same assertive righteousness as my character did, when they are convinced that a suspect has committed a crime. It’s not Maoist. It’s police investigation that we see reflected in every detective show and crime thriller. I loved being cast in roles for my abilities and for the personality traits that make me fit for a character. I hope that when audiences see me in non-Asian specific roles, they start to see Asians as a normalized part of society and not as The Other. In 2016 and the imagined future of the character I play, I had hoped that we were beyond blatant Orientalism. It seems, we’ve got a long way to go. Finding time is hard. Yesterday, I had a conversation with my friend while we were working on a project. We were both incredibly tired, emotionally stressed, and mentally fried. I asked her, “Is this what adulthood means? Always being tired? Never seeing your friends unless you’re working on a project together?”
See, most of my friends and I are artists. We create theatre, and we all chose this line of work because it brings a lot of people joy. Making plays often satisfies one’s intellectual curiosity, allows us to exercise our imagination and emotions, and provides fun physical challenges. Sharing theatrical work with audiences and connecting with them through shared narrative is a powerful, communal experience. And making theatre takes a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of commitment. I spend most hours of each day rehearsing, performing, auditioning, emailing to submit my headshot and resume, meeting with potential artistic colleagues, and teaching the arts to supplement all the non-paid sweat equity I put into building my career. Packing in all these projects means having no full days off. So where does that leave time for anything else? Lately, I noticed that I was constantly eating on the go while running from a class I teach to a meeting to a performance. My friends commented that I had become irritable with having such a hectic scedule. I fall asleep responding to emails in my bed, and I haven’t visited my adorable niece and nephew in six months and am afraid they are growing up without me. In giving all of my energy to my art, I’ve failed to give energy to myself and my loved ones. I make art in an attempt to cultivate the best parts of our humanity which I find to be love, communication, independent thought, and the ability to experience joy. But I can not do that successfully if I do not honor those things in and for myself and my loved ones. I would be a phony if I continued to cultivate these ideals for everyone else but me, a loving partner, my family, and my friends. So, how do I initiate change? How do I begin to cultivate a work-life balance where I make time for my health, my love life, and my family? I am going to start by saying no. No to late night emails. No to unnecessary meetings when a shared google doc will do. No to taking on work if I don’t need them financially or if they don’t help me grow. I am going to start saying yes. Yes to a set bedtime and set mealtimes. Yes to remembering to speak and show love to the people in my sphere. Yes to implementing dates in my calendar to see my family and honoring that commitment. Yes to setting boundaries between work and the other aspects of my life. Yes to carving out time for ME. |
AuthorI'm at a turning point in my life, and it's awesome. I've let go of a lot of things I was supposed to care about and embraced the things I do care about, mostly Love, Family, Theatre, and Food. ArchivesCategories |
| Bi Jean Ngo |
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