With rehearsals for the US premiere of The Golden Dragon underway, we sat down with director Serge Seiden to discuss how his experiences with German language and culture informed his choices for the play, his decision to cast an ethnically varied ensemble, and ways to navigate the stylistic conventions of Schimmelpfennig’s dynamic script.
JR: You traveled to Germany this past July. What did you see? Did this trip inform the way you’re thinking about The Golden Dragon?
SS: The Goethe-Institut funded my travel to the Impulse Festival, a multi-city play festival in Ruhr Valley. The Institut invited curators from all over the world to see several productions—I saw seven shows in four days. My interest in German language and culture dates back to my childhood, so the trip was also a way for me to reengage with it, which was particularly useful when it came to working through the script. Karin Rosnizek, our translation consultant, and I reworked the translation that was done for the first British production. We made subtle changes that, to me, reflect both the feel of German text and some of the ways in which the playwright uses sound—alliteration, repetition—to create a distinct style.
Previous international productions of The Golden Dragon have been cast entirely with white actors, but Studio’s production will feature an ethnically varied ensemble. What led you to this decision?
A multiethnic cast will resonate with an American audience differently, and I was personally more interested in working with an ethnically varied cast. Not only is it visually more striking, it also opens the play up for discussion about prejudice—who holds which prejudices, how that tracks across these characters—and who deals with the issues of migration that the play brings up.
For the 2009-2010 Studio season, you directed Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In the Red and Brown Water, which shares a convention with The Golden Dragon in that the actors speak most of their stage directions. What are your thoughts about acting and directing styles for these plays?
The Golden Dragon is stylistically close to story theatre—the five actors have to transform, tell a story, entertain, and be committed and clear so that the audience can follow the story. This play breaks the traditional conventions of theatre—like having the characters break the fourth wall—which keeps the piece surprising, and keeps the audience engaged.
A lot of the style we’ll ultimately find depends on the actors. I have quite a few ideas, but I think how it actually transpires—how far it goes with vocal and physical character—will depend on the group. In terms of design, it’s all about doing what’s really necessary to tell a story, and not doing more. At its foundation, Schimmelpfennig’s script has a strong element of spectacle, forcing the director to elevate the story but also to create realistic scenes with real drama. The trick is to do both.
Artistic Team
Serge Seiden- (Director) most recently directed Superior Donuts for The Studio Theatre. His other Studio Theatre credits include In the Red and Brown Water; Grey Gardens; My Children! My Africa!; Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, which received three Helen Hayes Awards and five Helen Hayes nominations including Outstanding Director and Outstanding Resident Play; The Long Christmas Ride Home; Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom; Black Milk; The Cripple of Inishmaan; The York Realist; and A Class Act. He also directed A New Brain, which received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Resident Musical; Two Sisters and a Piano; Blue Heart; The Last Night of Ballyhoo; and Old Wicked Songs, which received seven Helen Hayes nominations, including Outstanding Director. For The Studio Theatre 2ndStage, Mr. Seiden directed Sixty Miles to Silver Lake, All That I Will Ever Be, This is Our Youth, Ecstacy, Mad Forest, Hot Fudge, Sincerity Forever, and Durang/Durang. His recent production of Charlotte’s Web at Adventure Theatre received the 2011 Audience Choice Award for Favorite Family Show. Since 1990, Mr. Seiden has held various positions for The Studio Theatre including Literary Manager, Production Stage Manager, and Production Manager. He is currently the Associate Producing Artistic Director. Mr. Seiden is a graduate of Swarthmore College and completed the curriculum at The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory in 1989. He has been a faculty member of The Conservatory since 1997.
Deb Booth- (Set Design) returns to The Studio Theatre where she has designed The New Electric Ballroom, The Walworth Farce, Circle Mirror Transformation, Adding Machine, Moonlight, Blackbird, The Road to Mecca, and My Children! My Africa!. Other Studio productions include The Pillowman; Caroline, or Change; Fat Pig; A Number; Afterplay; The Russian National Postal Service; Far Away; and Privates on Parade. International work includes premiere operas, Marco Polo, (Tan Dun/Martha Clarke), and The Hindenburg (Steve Reich/Roman Paska). Regionally, credits include The Lost Boys of the Sudan for the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre; Rough Crossing and Famous Orpheus for Geva Theatre; Marisol for Hartford Stage and the New York Shakespeare Festival; Trying, The Illusion, The Baltimore Waltz, Happy Days, and My Children! My Africa! for Portland Stage; PellŽas and MŽlisande for Skylight Opera; the NY premiere of Angels in America for Juilliard; The Game of Love and Chance for the Berkshire Theatre Festival; Broken Glass for the Philadelphia Theatre Company (Barrymore Award nomination); and Moon for the Misbegotten at Yale Repertory Theatre. She has also collaborated with Estelle Parsons, Al Pacino, Dianne Wiest, and Marisa Tomei on Salome for the Actors Studio. Ms. Booth was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Design Grant, is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, and is Director of the Design Program at Brandeis University.
Michael Giannitti- (Light Design) has designed 40 productions at The Studio Theatre including The New Electric Ballroom, The Walworth Farce, Tynan, Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet, American Buffalo, Reasons to Be Pretty, Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Seafarer, The Road To Mecca, The Pillowman, Fat Pig, Afterplay, The Russian National Postal Service, and Seven Guitars, which earned him a Helen Hayes Award nomination. He designed lighting for the original Broadway production of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. He has designed extensively for the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Trinity Repertory Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, Weston Playhouse, and the Dorset Theatre Festival, where he is Producing Director. Mr. Giannitti has also designed for Chautauqua Theatre Company, Virginia Stage, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage Company, George Street Playhouse, Jomandi Productions, Yale Repertory Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, and the Spoleto Festival. New York dance lighting credits include Dance Theatre Workshop, Dancespace, The Joyce, The Kitchen, and P.S. 122. He has been on the faculty at Bennington College since 1992. As a Fulbright Senior Specialist, he taught in Romania and New Zealand.
Helen Huang- (Costume Design) has designed costumes for more than 30 productions at The Studio Theatre including The Seafarer, The Pillowman, Far Away, The Life of Galileo (Set and Costume), Waiting for Godot, and Indian Ink, for which she received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Costume Design. Her costume designs have been seen at The Guthrie Theater, The Children’s Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse Stage, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, The Arden Theatre Company, Disney Creative Entertainment, Arizona Theatre Company, the Utah Shakespearean Festival, and Boston Lyric Opera. Ms. Huang has also designed for several DC-area theatres including Arena Stage, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Olney Theatre Center, The Kennedy Center, Theater of the First Amendment, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre, where her costume design for Stunning was nominated for the 2009 Helen Hayes Award. Her design work for Monkey King (Ivey Award, Minneapolis) was included in the United States National Exhibit to the Prague Quadrennial 2007. Her renderings were featured in “Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance,” a 2009 exhibition at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Ms. Huang is also a professor in the MFA Costume Design Program at the Department of Theatre at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Evan Rogers- (Sound Design) makes his Studio Theatre design debut with The Golden Dragon. Past designs include Madness and Civilization and The Omnivore’s Dilemma with Georgetown University’s Performing Arts Center. Recent performances of his music include the premiere of his song cycle Six Significant Landscapes at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France and Trio for two violins and viola at the 33rd San Miguel de Allende International Chamber Music Festival. As a music technologist, Mr. Rogers has been assisting in the development of spatial audio software tools for use in music and sound at VRSonic, Inc in Arlington, VA. He holds a BS in Music Technology from Northeastern University and an MM in Composition from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University.
Cast
Sarah Marshall- (Woman Over 60) returns to The Studio Theatre, where she has previously appeared in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Prometheus, Betty’s Summer Vacation, Three Sisters, Miss Margarida’s Way, Sylvia, The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, The Baltimore Waltz, When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout, My Sister in This House, Playing For Time, A Taste Of Honey, The Visit, Medea, Laughing Wild, The Hostage, In Perpetuity Throughout The Universe, As Is, The Bright And Bold Design, North Shore Fish, and Slavs!. Her most recent credits include The Glass Menagerie at Arena Stage and Georgetown University and In The Next Room, or the vibrator play at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Ms. Marshall has also performed at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Folger Theatre, The Stage Guild, Arena Stage, Horizons, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Signature Theatre, and The Kennedy Center Program for Young Audiences. In addition, Ms. Marshall has been teaching acting for almost 25 years, including at Round House Theatre, Source Theatre, The Berkshire Theatre Festival, Fillmore Arts Center, The Kennedy Center, The Theater Lab, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and The Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory. Ms. Marshall currently teaches acting at Georgetown University and is part of the visiting faculty at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
Joseph Anthony Foronda- (Man Over 60) makes his Studio Theatre debut. His Chicago credits include Yellow Face and Durango at Silk Road Rising, Annie Get Your Gun with Patti LuPone at the Ravinia Festival, Yeast Nation at American Theater Company, The Romance of Magno Rubio at Victory Gardens Theater, Let the Eagle Fly at Goodman Theatre’s Latino Theatre Festival, A Year with Frog and Toad at Chicago Children’s Theater, Miss Saigon and The King and I at Drury Lane Oakbook, Urinetown at the Mercury Theater, and Pacific Overtures at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Mr. Foronda’s regional credits include Les Miserables and The King and I at Weston Playhouse, Flower Drum Song at American Music Theatre San Jose, Miss Saigon at Theatre Under the Stars, and The Fantasticks at East West Players (directed by Mako). He has been seen on Broadway in the 2004 revival of Pacific Overtures with BD Wong, Miss Saigon with Lea Salonga (as well as both National Tours), and James Clavell’s SHOGUN: The Musical. In London, he appeared in the Olivier Award-winning Pacific Overtures at the Donmar Warehouse. Film credits include Contagion and Formosa Betrayed.
Amir Darvish- (Man) is pleased to be in DC with The Studio Theatre. His New York theatre credits include Taxi to Janna, Falling, Homeland, Shoes, Dinner with Ahmed, Mona’s Dream, and the critically acclaimed Off Broadway one-man show about Freddie Mercury, Mercury: The Afterlife & Times of a Rock God. Regional theatre credits include Single Lives at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre; SubUrbia at SpeakEasy Stage Company; and Rafta, Rafta at the Old Globe Theatre. Mr. Darvish is the recipient of the 2010 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in Psych and a 2009 Midtown International Theatre Best Actor nominee for The Higher Education of Khalid Amir. In addition to voiceover and commercial work, Mr. Darvish has appeared in numerous film and television productions, including Month to Month, Charlie Wilson’s War, Confessions, Trooper, The Pink Panther, October Haze, Atlas Mountains, Love Magical, Bar Karma, Running Wilde, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Human Giant, Late Show with David Letterman, Spin City, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, The Unusuals, NYPD Blue, and Damages.
KK Moggie- (Young Woman) is excited to make her Studio Theatre debut with The Golden Dragon. Her Off Broadway appearances include Bottom of the World at Atlantic Theater Company, The Bereaved with Partial Comfort Productions, Grace with MCC, and Richard III at Classic Stage Company. Ms. Moggie also workshopped Macbeth 1969 with the Long Wharf Theatre, now a part of their 2012 season. Her television credits include New Zealand’s Street Legal and The Strip. She was also a core cast member on NBC’s Mercy and can soon be seen in a recurring role as Dr. Barnes on the CW’s Gossip Girl. Film credits include Anna and the King with Jodie Foster and The Sleeping Dictionary with Jessica Alba.
Chris Myers- (Young Man) is thrilled to be making his Studio Theatre debut. Recent credits include 10x25 at Atlantic Theater Company, Youth Ink! at The McCarter Theatre, The Others Project at New York Theater Workshop, and Brave New Works at The Connelly Theater. He is the co-founder of Special Sauce Company, a young theatre company focusing on unique presentations of collaborative work, which is currently developing a musical. Mr. Myers is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School, where his favorite roles include Astrov, Othello, and Captain Bluntschli.
Synopsis
In the cramped kitchen of The Golden Dragon, a pan-Asian restaurant, a young Chinese cook—the new one, the one who’s looking for his sister—has a toothache. The orders keep flying as he screams in the kitchen, knitting the customers’ lives together in a mix of fried rice noodles, steamed dumplings, and pineapple-peach chicken.
The other four cooks pull their coworker’s tooth using some vodka and a spare wrench. His tooth ends up in the Thai soup of an exhausted flight attendant. In the apartment building above her, a young couple fight and eat takeout, while another man escapes from his apartment to the restaurant below to avoid watching his wife move out. The same man ends up drinking with the shopkeeper of the dry goods store next door to the restaurant, who is more connected to the young Chinese man than anyone suspects. Dark, funny, and startling, Schimmelpfennig’s play traces the isolation and unexpected connections of a globalized world.
The Playwright in His Own Words
Roland Schimmelpfennig is Germany’s most produced writer. Known for his surprising juxtapositions of lyricism and violence, as well as his breadth of storytelling techniques, Schimmelpfennig’s work shares recurrent themes of alienation and connection, desire and regret, along with the peculiar ways his language unfolds. Marked by a direct and almost clipped diction, his language can be both brutal and near-mythic by turns. His characters are frequently isolated from one another, but share a set of images and experiences that suggest a connection they rarely recognize, even when they’re literally sharing dreams.
David Tushingham, who has translated many of Schimmelpfennig’s work into English (including The Golden Dragon), links his language and thematic interests: “His work is always functioning on different levels at the same time. Structurally, you’ll have elements of a fairy tale and elements that are more realistic. But his language combines elements of contemporary life in a way that is quite elegant, both humorous and surprisingly serious at the same time.”
Here’s how Schimmelpfennig describes his work and process:
“I’ve lived in Turkey. I’ve worked in America. My wife has a Mexican passport, and the friends of my children have roots in India, Cuba, Peru, Vietnam. My plays don’t care about intellectuals in galleries, but in fruit dealers and cashiers, the bleary-eyed girls in the morning on the subway. Berlin isn’t an intellectual city any more. It’s an open city, an international metropolis. That’s the city I write for.”
“I don’t start with an idea of genre. A play finds its own genre.”
“Good stories are often found on the street. They just have to be discovered.”
“In my plays, the actor becomes a character, but is also always present as an actor. He can’t disappear behind the mask of a ‘character’, which makes the experience more transparent, and in some ways, even more human.”
“Plays reflect their time. Above all, they reflect the people and their needs and desires, their mistakes and fears, their inadequacies and cruelty—and that in itself is complex enough.”
“The focus of dramatic art is always on the human being. Theatre deals with people. Theatre is not that good at dealing with theory or with global economic structures. Theatre is good at giving these things a name and a human face.”
—Adrien-Alice Hansel
What’s Cooking in the Melting Pot?
Food and Cultural Assimilation
“Italian, Mexican, and Chinese (Cantonese) cuisines have indeed joined the mainstream. More than nine out of ten consumers are familiar with and have tried these foods, and about half report eating them frequently. The research also indicates that Italian, Mexican, and Chinese cuisines have become so adapted to such an extent that “authenticity” is no longer a concern to customers.”
—Sue Hensley, American National Restaurant Association
Set in and around a “Thai/Chinese/Vietnamese fast food restaurant,” The Golden Dragon explores the effects of globalization on a personal level. Written by a German playwright, set in an unnamed Western city, and centered on a dining establishment that serves the food of various Asian cultures, this play examines the relationship between food, the culture it comes from, and the context it’s served in.
In fact, many so-called “ethnic” foods were actually adapted—and occasionally created—to fit American palettes at a particular time. Nachos originated in the city of Piedras Negras, Mexico, just over the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. One day in 1943, the wives of a number of US soldiers stationed in Eagle Pass were in Piedras Negras on a shopping trip and arrived at the Victory Club restaurant after it had closed for the day. The maître d', Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, invented a new snack for them with what he had available in the kitchen: tortillas and cheese. Anaya cut the tortillas into triangles, added cheddar cheese, quickly heated them, and added sliced jalapeño peppers. He served the dish, calling it Nachos Especiales. The name stuck.
Likewise, the “Chinese” fortune cookie is also an American invention. One competing legend of the fortune cookie suggests it was introduced in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, only to be pirated and popularized by a local Chinese restaurateur. Another version also gives the cookie a Japanese-American heritage, and contends the cookie is a descendent of the sembet, a flat, round, rice cracker.
The food people eat carries—and sometimes magnifies—the contradictions of its larger context. The evolution of food in the United States exemplifies any country where cultures collide. Food is a snapshot of an ever-changing culture, and colonization can work both ways: Indian tikka masala has become Great Britain’s unofficial national dish. As the world’s population continues to emigrate from one country to the next, a country’s national cuisine will continue to merge, evolve, and inform each other.
—Sarah Wallace