Sierra Madre Playhouse offers audiences a timely salute to the immigrant experience while exploring the generation/culture gap that separates four middle-aged Chinese women from their grown American daughters in an exquisitely staged and designed production of Susan Kim’s not entirely successful adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.

Suyuan’s (Sharline Liu) recent death has left an empty space at the table where she and her longtime besties Lindo (Lee Chen), Ying-Ying (Peggy Lu), and An-Mei (Grace Shen) have met over the past three decades in San Francisco’s Chinatown to play mahjong and kvetch about daughters who haven’t always lived up to their mothers’ aspirations.

Suyuan’s daughter Jing-Mei (Nancy Ma), for one, not only failed to become the concert pianist of her mother’s dreams when her first childhood recital ended up being her last, she’s now a single, childless not terribly successful copywriter, and over thirty to boot.

One-time child chess prodigy Waverly (Christine Liao) is now a high-powered business woman trying to figure out how to break it to mom Lindo that she’s planning on marrying Rich (Robert O’Hare), a Caucasian with little sensitivity to cross-cultural differences.

Lena (Katharine Chen Lerner), Ying-Ying’s rebellious daughter, finds herself incapable of standing up to her Chinese-American architect husband Harold (Victor Chi), a penny-pincher with little interest in his wife’s likes and dislikes.

Last but not least there’s Rose (April Lam), who’s recently learned that her non-Asian husband Ted (O’Hare again) plans to leave her for another woman, something which the unassertive Rose finds herself powerless to do anything about.

As challenging as these four young women find their lives to be, however, their travails pale in comparison to the pain and tragedy their mothers experienced before leaving China for San Francisco, USA.

When The Joy Luck Club became a Hollywood hit four years after its 1989 debut, some film-goers found its multitude of past-and-present plot line hard to follow, but director Wayne Wang’s film smash feels like a walk in the park compared to Kim’s stage version, which not only lacks the movie’s methodical mother/daughter-by-mother/daughter format, it tries to squeeze in a number of flashbacks (some narrated, some staged) that screenwriters Tan and Ronald Bass opted wisely to trim, most significantly a “Moon Lady” sequence that concludes Act One on a “What was that about?” note.

In addition, it hardly clarifies matters to have some cast members playing as many as four or five roles or its eight lead actresses appearing not only as their adult selves but as the younger women and children they once were.

On the plus side, Kim’s play’s theatrical nature allows director Tim Dang to show off equal parts inspiration and ingenuity and the sensational design team he has assembled to work multiple wonders, in particular the breathtaking tai chi ballet (choreographed by movement coach Tom Tsai) that brings the production to its powerful climax.

 And there’s no denying the power of the mother-daughter stories Amy Tan has to tell, with the added plus that each and every Chinese or Chinese-American character is brought to life on the Sierra Madre Playhouse stage by a Chinese-American actor in a cast completed by Christopher Chen, Debbie Fan, and Gloria Tsai.

There’s also no denying the beauty of scenic/projection designer Yee Eun Nam’s brightly hued, stunningly detailed set enhanced by a host of stunning images projected on a shimmering string curtain backdrop.

Jojo Su’s past-and-1980s/Chinese-and-American costumes, Derek Jones’ ultra-vibrant lighting, and a sound design/original background score composed by sound designer Nathan Wang and assistant sound designer Cora Chung are spectacular too, with added design kudos shared by properties master Berri Tsang and hair-and-makeup designer Diahann McCrary.

The Joy Luck Club is produced by Estelle Campbell and Christian Lebano. Barbara Phillips is assistant costume designer. Orlando de la Paz is scenic painter.

Jeanne Marie Valleroy is stage manager and KC Read-Fisher is assistant stage manager. Owen Lewis is production manager and Todd McCraw is technical director.

Imperfect as its stage adaptation may be, when Jing-Mei finally takes her mother’s place among her aunties as a member of the Joy Luck Club, even audiences who may have gotten lost in a plethora of plot lines past and present can expect to exit the Sierra Madre Playhouse moved by the emotional journey they have experienced.

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre.
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
August 24, 2019
Photos: Gina Long

Tags: Amy Tan, Los Angeles Theater Review, Sierra Madre Playhouse, Susan Kim