Discovering Humor in Broadway's 'Yellow Face' with Daniel Dae Kim

Somewhat-known reality about Daniel Dae Kim: He’s actually, actually into “Saturday Night Live.”

“I’m a super fan,” says the actor just some days earlier than beginning performances for the revival of David Henry Hwang’s 2007 play “Yellow Face” on Broadway. Speaking on the most recent episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast, he added, “I have not missed a single episode since probably 1980.”

That trivia tidbit might come as a shock to those that know Kim greatest for the super-serious characters he performs on TV, just like the loyal survivor Jin-Soo Kwon on “Lost” or the upstanding detective Chin Ho Kelly on “Hawaii Five-0.” But now this “SNL” fanatic is subverting his personal morally upright persona in Hwang’s play, in which he stars as a comically flawed model of the Tony-winning playwright.

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“Seeing someone like Daniel start to lose it and flounder and act unscrupulously? That’s pretty funny,” Hwang says.

Opening on Broadway Oct. 1, “Yellow Face” is a farcical chronicle of Hwang’s expertise main the 1990 protest towards the casting of white actor Jonathan Pryce in a serious Eurasian function of “Miss Saigon.” In the play, Kim’s character, DHH, by accident casts a white actor in an Asian function in “Face Value,” Hwang’s real-life play that flopped on Broadway in 1993.

Although comedy is likely to be a departure for Kim, DHH appears to fall proper in the actor’s wheelhouse in different methods. Like Hwang, Kim is a vocal advocate for Asian Americans. He testified earlier than Congress in 2021 concerning the ongoing wave of anti-Asian hate crimes and received admiration when he and his co-star, Grace Park, walked away from “Hawaii Five-0” after seven seasons over pay disparities with white castmates.

The overlap of DHH’s experiences with his personal was a part of the attraction for Kim. “When you stick your neck out like that, you feel very vulnerable,” he says. “David shows us the personal part of the journey. You try to be brave about the thing that you’re fighting so hard for, but it doesn’t mean you’re not scared and you don’t question your own decisions.”

He provides, “The play also explores, ‘How much of my ego is driving me to do these things? How much self-gain is there in fighting for the community?’ I give David a lot of credit for asking those questions, because I’ve asked them myself.”

For the theater business, the Broadway arrival of “Yellow Face” additionally serves as what Kim calls “a barometer of how far we’ve come,” 30 years after the early-’90s setting of the play and 17 years after the present premiered in L.A.

On one hand, the apply of casting white actors in Asian roles — and modifying their options to look the half — now feels as clearly misguided as blackface. And as Kim is fond of claiming, “There’s never been a better time to be an actor from a marginalized group in this country, in terms of representation and in sheer number of jobs.”

On the opposite hand, Asian American actors crammed simply 6.3% of roles on Broadway, based on the newest “Visibility Report” from the Asian American Performers Action Coalition. Plus, as Hwang notes, “It’s still very rare to see AAPI playwrights on Broadway.”

As a producer, Kim works to maneuver the needle on inclusivity with his firm 3AD, now following up its first success, ABC’s “The Good Doctor,” with “Butterfly,” a spy thriller and household drama anticipated to reach on Amazon Prime subsequent 12 months.

But for now, the actor stays centered on getting the laughs in “Yellow Face” — as a result of dying could also be simple, however comedy is difficult. “Pretty soon we’ll know whether we’ve lived to tell the tale,” he stated.

To hear the complete dialog with Kim, pay attention on the hyperlink above or obtain and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms together with Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are launched each different week.