ABSTRACT
In the beginning years, the EWP attempted to reappropriate Asian theatre, partly to accommodate the tastes of mainstream American audiences. They did not present an essentialist view of the “Asian American experience.” Instead, they staged intercultural theatre pieces, including Kyogen pieces and Chinese opera, functioned as a bridge between the East and West, but only in a compromising way. By staging traditional, visually attractive pieces, the EWP perpetuated Asian culture as curious and exotic. Adapting traditional Japanese and Chinese plays, and presenting classical European plays in an “Oriental” setting (The Servant of Two Masters) reveals that the EWP remained subordinate to American mainstream culture and that they had a genuine enthusiasm for presenting their ethnic roots. These works emphasized an Oriental “reality” constructed by, as Edward Said says, a “Western tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary” about the Orient (5). On the other hand, the works manifest the EWP’s passion for recapturing and expressing of Asian cultural heritage.
