Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays

Young Jean Lee

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781559366267
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

“Bold, unguarded work... that resists pat definition. [Young Jean] Lee has penned profane lampoons of motivational bromides ( Pullman, WA ) and the Romantic poets ( The Appeal ). Now she piles her deconstructive scorn upon ethnic stereotypes in Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, a sweet-and-sour parade of Asian minstrelsy.”— Time Out New York

“A perverse, provocative, and very funny festival of racism... Songs offers not only chauvinistic monologues and ass-slapping Korean dances, but also a rigorous exploration of art-making and its associated terrors.”— The Village Voice

“Have you ever noticed how most Asian Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents?” begins the Korean American protagonist of Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, the singular work of Young Jean Lee, whose plays are like nothing you have ever seen or read. This is the first collection by the downtown writer-director, whose explorations of stereotypes of race, gender, and religion are unflinching—and seat-squirming funny. Also includes Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals; The Appeal; Pullman, WA; Church; and Yaggoo.

Young Jean Lee was born in Korea and moved to the United States at age two. She grew up in Pullman, Washington, and attended college at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also studied Shakespeare in the English PhD program before moving to New York. She is the founder of the Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company, where she directs her own work, and has toured internationally in Vienna, Hanover, Berlin, Switzerland, Brussels, Norway, France, and Rotterdam; and across the United States in Portland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis. She is the recipient of a 2007 Emerging Playwright OBIE Award.

Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven

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For Stephen Booth

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Production History

Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven was originally produced by Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. It premiered in September 2006 at HERE Arts Center in New York through HERE’S HARP residency program. It was directed by Young Jean Lee; the set and lighting design were by Eric Dyer, the costume design was by Colleen Werthmann, the sound design was by Jamie McElhinney and the video and choreography were by Dean Moss. It was performed by:

KOREAN-AMERICAN	Becky Yamamoto
KOREAN 1	Jun Sky Kim
KOREAN 2	Haerry Kim
KOREAN 3	Jennifer Lim
WHITE PERSON 1	Juliana Francis Kelly
WHITE PERSON 2	Brian Bickerstaff

Characters

KOREAN-AMERICAN
KOREAN 1
KOREAN 2
KOREAN 3
WHITE PERSON 1
WHITE PERSON 2

Note

Korean-American and Koreans 1, 2 and 3 should be played by actresses who are one hundred percent Korean, Chinese or Japanese (or any mix of the three, for example, half-Chinese /half-Japanese). When speaking English, Koreans 1, 2 and 3 speak with authentic Asian accents and Korean-American speaks with an American accent. When not speaking English, Koreans 1, 2 and 3 speak their native languages, whatever those may be. Ideally, one would speak Korean, one would speak Chinese and one would speak Japanese. In the original production, Koreans 1 and 2 spoke Korean and Korean 3 spoke Cantonese, which is reflected in the stage directions.

White Person 1 is female and White Person 2 is male.

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The audience enters the theater and finds itself stuck behind the set, which is a quasi-Korean-Buddhist temple with a large, multipaneled Korean dragon mural painted on the back. There are rafters extending above the walls, suggesting the elements of an Asian-looking roof. Colored paper lanterns hang from the ceiling to the rear and sides of the temple, and there is the sound of Asian flute music and trickling water. Ushers prevent people from going around the sides of the temple in order to reach their seats. Ideally, the audience will be crowded together behind the temple in a claustrophobic manner and made to steep in this oppressively “Asian” environment for a long time before they are allowed to go to their seats.

As soon as the house opens, the sound stops and the audience enters down narrow gravel paths on either side of the temple. The inside of the temple is a large, bare room made of sheets of unpainted light birch plywood. There are two actor entrances, one on each side of the room. The stage floor is also made from unpainted light birch plywood, except for a large rectangle in the center, which is made from knotty yellow pine planks, approximating the pattern of floor planking in many Korean Buddhist temples. The entire floor is raised slightly and does not meet the walls, giving it a floating quality. The overall effect is one of emptiness and light.

There are four evenly spaced rows of one-inch diameter fluorescent tubes running upstage to downstage suspended over the set, suggesting a ceiling for the temple. Only the tubes themselves are visible—no housing or wiring. The two stage left rows of lights extend over the audience to serve as house lighting. Each of the White People’s scenes are lit by the tubes directly above where they are standing (which changes with each scene), except for the final scene, during which all of the tubes are lit at once.

Sudden lights out.

Prerecorded sound of the play’s writer and director Young Jean Lee and her real-life friends talking and laughing as they begin to make a video of Young Jean getting hit in the face. Dean is operating the camera and Yehuda is hitting Young Jean. Rollo is helping with the lighting. The entire dialogue plays in darkness and the audience can’t see anything that is taking place.

DEAN: Okay . . . Everybody ready?

YEHUDA: So do a, just do a practice for the camera.

DEAN: That’s it.

YEHUDA: All right. So.

DEAN: Hold on. Just . . .

YEHUDA: On a scale of one to ten what should this be?

YOUNG JEAN: Mmm . . .

YEHUDA: Ten being as hard as I’m going to hit you, not as hard as I can hit you.

YOUNG JEAN: Right. Um, you know, I think we should be in, like, communication for the whole thing, because when we did it, it was fine when there was talking. So why don’t you start out, like, pretty soft, and then, you know, like start out with like a one, and then I’ll tell you to, like, increase it.

(Everyone giggles as Yehuda lightly taps Young Jean’s face.)

ROLLO: A caress.

YOUNG JEAN: Are we rolling?

DEAN: We are rolling. Okay . . . go.

(Slap.)

YOUNG JEAN (Giggling): That’s pretty hard, for a one. Like, projecting to a ten.

DEAN: Yehuda, when you slap her, don’t stop. Follow through. Follow through so the hand disappears and we only have her reaction.

YEHUDA: I’ll go softer, all right?

YOUNG JEAN: No, you can try it that—like that again.

YEHUDA: Ready?

(Slap.)

YOUNG JEAN: Dean, is this okay?

DEAN: One more time. This is okay. Um, Young Jean, I have a sense that you want to . . . come back.

YOUNG JEAN: Come back where?

DEAN: Come back to the front, and come back to your composure as quickly as possible.

YOUNG JEAN: As quickly as possible?

DEAN: As quickly as you possibly can.

YOUNG JEAN: Okay.

DEAN: I know you’re, you’re kind of figuring out a lot of information.

YOUNG JEAN: Yeah.

DEAN: But try to—

YOUNG JEAN: Try to just come back—

DEAN: Try to, try to come back and let that be the figuring out.

YEHUDA: Yeah, that should be your blocking, because even if you can’t do that, it’ll look cool.

DEAN: Okay. Long neck. Thank you.

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(Slap.)

Good.

(Slap.)

Better. Yehuda, that was better.

YEHUDA: Okay.

(Slap.)

DEAN: Young Jean, fix your hair.

(Slap.)

Chin up. Debutante.

(Really loud slap.)

Yehuda, not any harder than that.

(Slap.)

Hair. Beautiful.

(Slap.

Pause.

Slap.

Pause.

Slap.

Young Jean sniffles.

Slap.)

You can’t be the signal.

YOUNG JEAN: Hm?

DEAN: You can’t be the signal.

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YEHUDA: I’m just saying it—you don’t have to answer, I’m just gonna say it.

YOUNG JEAN: Okay.

(Slap.

A siren in the background.)

DEAN: Hair.

(Slap.

Young Jean sniffles.

Slap.

Young Jean sniffles.

Slap.)

Okay let’s stop.

YOUNG JEAN (Sniffling): Why?

DEAN: Okay let’s not.

(A video of Young Jean crying appears against the back wall. A traditional Korean pansori song begins. Young Jean gets hit in the face repeatedly. The video is edited so that you never see the hand hitting her face—only her reaction as her head flies back and she tries to straighten her hair and regain her composure. She cries throughout.

The slaps increase in intensity and frequency, continuing after the song ends, until you see Young Jean mouth the words, “One more,” before she gets hit one last time.

The video ends.

Lights come up on Korean-American, looking cute in a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

She smiles at the audience.)

KOREAN-AMERICAN: Have you ever noticed how most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents?

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It’s like being raised by monkeys—these retarded monkeys who can barely speak English and who are too evil to understand anything besides conformity and status. Most of us hate these monkeys from an early age and try to learn how to be human from school or television, but the result is always tainted by this subtle or not so subtle retardation. Asian people from Asia are even more brain-damaged, but in a different way, because they are the original monkey.

Anyway, some white men who like Asian women seem to like this retarded quality as well, and sometimes the more retarded the better.

I am so mad about all of the racist things against me in this country, which is America.

Like the fac...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Church
• Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven
• Pullman, WA
• The Appeal
• Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
• Yaggoo
• What’s Wrong with These Plays?
• Copyright Page