A child in time

What started out as tape recordings of a Chinese-Filipino family’s oral history gleaned by a young man have been transformed into an engaging family drama with a universal message.

This is David Henry Hwang’s Golden Child, which opens today, 8 p.m., at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theater). A co-presentation by CCP and Tanghalang Pilipino as (TP) its 22nd season opener, Golden Child features Art Acuña, Irma Adlawan Marasigan, Liesl Batucan, Tina Chilip, Tess Jamias, Leo Rialp and the TP Actor’s Company.

David Henry Hwang is best known as the author of M. Butterfly, which ran for two years on Broadway, won the 1988 Tony, Drama Desk, John Gassner, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The play enjoyed a one-year run on London’s West End and has been produced in over three dozen countries to date.  His play Golden Child premiered Off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, received a 1997 OBIE Award for playwriting and subsequently moved to Broadway, where it received three 1998 Tony nominations, including Best New Play. His newest play, Yellow Face, which premiered at Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum and New York’s Public Theater, won a 2008 OBIE for playwriting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. 

Hwang’s Broadway musicals include his new book for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song, starring Lea Salonga, which earned him his third Tony nomination in 2003 for Best Book of a Musical. He co-wrote the book for Disney’s international hit Aida, with music and lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice, which won four 2000 Tony Awards and ran over four years on Broadway, and was the book-writer of Disney’s Tarzan, with songs by Phil Collins.

Golden Child at CCP is a homecoming of sorts for Hwang.

In the play, Andrew Kwong is visited in a dream by his long-deceased grandmother, Ahn, who insists on telling him the story of her father once again to give him one last chance to make a new life.

Eng Tieng Bin’s family in China awaits his return after spending several years of doing business in the Philippines. His three wives worry about the effect of his apparent interest in Western ways in a household where ancestor worship is observed and traditional rituals are practiced, setting off a power struggle among them.

After handing out gifts to his wives — Siu Yong, Luan and Eling — Tieng Bin announces that he has invited Reverend Baines, a British missionary, to visit. He later orders the unbinding of Ahn’s feet, contrary to tradition. It becomes clear that Tieng Bin has decided to turn his back on Chinese customs and convert to Christianity, and his wives’ worries become more pronounced: will he also choose just one woman as his wife?

Tieng Bin’s decision results in consequences he does not plan for nor remotely expects. It is his prized offspring, Ahn, his “Golden Child,” who encourages him to go back to the Philippines and promises to tell great stories about how he made them all born again.

Direction by Loy Arcenas, set design by Loy Arcenas, costume design by Gino Gonzales, lighting design by Barbie Tan Tiongco, sound design by J. Victor Villareal, and Filipino translation by Dennis Marasigan.

The play in English runs on Aug. 8, 9, 15 and 16 at 8 p.m., and Aug. 9, 10, 16 and 17 at 3 p.m. The play in Filipino runs on Aug. 22, 23, 29 and 30 at 8 p.m., and on Aug. 23, 24, 30 and 31 at 3 p.m.

The production is made possible by arrangement with Hal Leonard Australia on behalf of Dramatis Play Service Inc. New York.

For information, call CCP at 832-3661 and 832-1125 local 1620 and 1621.  — ID’B