East collides with West in broadly satirical fashion in Soft Power, the David Henry Hwang/Jeanine Tesori musical now in a world-premiere run at the Ahmanson. Directed by Leigh Silverman, the show—which prefers to call itself “a play with a musical”—uses big brushstrokes to paint its comic picture of two super-powers, America and China, competing for cultural and political dominance. Hwang, who was commissioned by CTG to create this show for the company’s 50th anniversary season, based some of his script on personal experience. As the leading Chinese-American playwright in the USA, he was approached by Chinese media execs to develop a TV series set in Shanghai that would be hugely successful not only in China but the USA. The idea was to prove to the world that China could beat the USA at its own game—and go on from there to lead culturally after that, via soft power (as opposed to military, or hard, power). In Act One, DHH (Hwang’s alter ego, played vibrantly by Francis Jue) meets a Chinese producer, Xue Xing (the equally charismatic Conrad Ricamora), who has commissioned him to write a Chinese version of “Sex in the City” that will dwarf the original. Problem is, there is government censorship of media in China, thanks to its autocratic and puritanical communist regime. Xing orders DHH to make changes in his pilot script: no overt sexuality, no hint of anything negative about life in China. DHH chafes at these restrictions but is willing to bend to state power in the hopes of getting the series made. DHH is equally annoyed—and mystified—by Xing’s love of The King and I, the musical in which a white woman exerts power over an Asian king and corrects the way he is running his country. Doesn’t he see that this is an outrageous case of cultural imperialism? Xing, of course, believes differently: he was deeply touched by the love story and the rapturous musical score. The contradictions in Xing’s character are further revealed when he introduces DHH to his American girlfriend, Zoe (the peppy Alyse Alan Louis), whom he loves passionately even though he has a wife and daughter back in China. Act Two takes a giant and madcap leap from 2016 L.A. to Shanghai, China in “early 22nd century.” This happens via DHH’s hallucinations in hospital, where he has been recovering from a mugging. Jumped and stabbed on a Brooklyn street—something that actually happened a few years ago to the playwright—DHH can only conclude that perhaps Xing is right about democracy being seriously flawed, an inferior society to the state-controlled (and policed) Chinese version. Soft Power also pokes fun at some other bizarre aspects of life in America: our gun-loving rednecks, our fast-food addiction (symbolized by a fantasy scene in a Taj Mahal-like McDonald’s), and above all, our political system. Much of the action takes place against the backdrop of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency. Clinton (played by the multi-tasking Alyse Alan Louis) and her adoring fan Xing have a love affair which takes over the show and results in its most poignant and telling moments, thanks to Tesori’s impassioned songs, and to the remarkable chemistry between Ricamora and Louis, who sing, dance and act flawlessly. With its jumping-jack of a story—it really does go all over the place in hit-and-miss fashion—Soft Power is a messy, somewhat confusing show, but thanks to its antic spirit, its caustic humor, and wonderful singing, dancing and acting, it could very well make its mark on the world of musical comedy.
