Sierra Madre Playhouse is back in business with Lauren Yee’s affectionate, affecting, winningly amusing tribute to her Chinese-American dad in King Of The Yees.

 It’s Yee and her father Larry themselves who escort us to “a door on Waverly Place in San Francisco’s Chinatown” behind which generation upon generation of male Yees have formed part of Yee Fûng Toy Goông Saw, the Yee Fung Toy Family Association, an organization Lauren deems obsolescent but which has, for nearly twenty years “swallowed” her father’s life.

Larry sees it differently. “You gotta support your community,” he declares, which is why there’s no fiercer supporter of California State Senator Leland Yee’s run for Secretary Of State, something we discover at lights-up when Larry interrupts his daughter as she rehearses the two actors (Christopher Chen and Miley Yamamoto) we’ve just seen standing in for the playwright and her dad.

Well, actually, the “Larry Yee” who bursts into the Playhouse like a Chinese New Year firecracker is an actor too (Dennis Dun), and writer-director Lauren isn’t really Yee but actress Harmony Zhang playing the playwright.

If all this sounds more than a bit metatheatrical, well we’re only a few minutes into King Of The Yees, and the ride has only just begun.

Along the way, Chen, Tom Dang, and Yamamoto bring to vivid life a myriad of colorful characters including “audience members” Danny Ma, whose last name turns out to be his family’s “paper name” and Jenny Pang, an activist impatient for playwright Yee to “tackle the bigger issues facing Chinatown”; Chinese gangster Shrimp Boy, the very mention of whose name provokes thunderous shivers; the literally face-changing Sichuan Face Changer; some Chinese New Year Parade-ready Lion Dancers; and Model Ancestor, said to have saved the Yees when hundreds of years ago they were being slaughtered.

Playwright Yee prefaces her play by declaring that “a lot of this is true, but a lot of it is only kind of true, just like the stories your father once told you as a child,” a remark whose whimsy is reflected throughout King Of The Yees’ fantastical two acts, the first of which serves as a kind of primer into the multicultural Asian-American experience, the second of which takes Lauren on a contemporary Odyssey that will have her scavenging San Francisco’s Chinatown for a particular brand of whiskey, oranges, and firecrackers needed to unlock the Yee Fung Toy Family Association’s red-and-gold doors for reasons I’ll leave you to discover.

Director Tim Dang, who made his Sierra Madre Playhouse debut a few years back with Nothing Is the Same and followed it with The Joy Luck Club, helms King Of The Yees with visual flair and emotional pizzazz.

Dun, whom movie buffs will recall facing Big Trouble in Little China opposite Kurt Russell, makes for a piquantly engaging Larry and leading lady Zhang gives Lauren plenty of girl-next-door pluck and charm.

As for the chameleonlike Chen, Dang, and Yamamoto, few actors get as thrilling a workout as this oh so talented threesome do in more roles, costumes, and accents than I could possibly count.

 A mostly Asian-American design team—Orlando de la Paz (scenic artist), Derek Jones (lighting designer/projection engineer), Yi-Chien Lee (set and projections), Jojo Siu (costumes), and Dennis Yen (sound design)—give King Of The Yees a terrific mix of authenticity and fancy, with choreographer Tom Tsai sprinkling in some traditional Chinese dance moves along the way.

Kenny Cole is assistant lighting designer and assistant projection designer. Jeanne Marie Valleroy is production stage manager/production manager and Bryan Ha and Risa Kurosaki are assistant stage managers. Berrie Tsang is associate company manager, events coordinator, and COVID compliance officer. Todd McCraw is technical director. Philip Sokoloff is publicist.

The last time Sierra Madre Playhouse welcomed audiences inside the ex-movie theater it has called home for decades, the year was 2019 and the months ahead looked bright.

That it’s taken a whopping two and a half years for its seats to once again be filled is indeed cause for celebration as the Playhouse reopens its doors with with the entertaining mix of fascinating facts and risk-taking whimsy that is Lauren Yee’s King Of The Yees. You may just exit the theater wishing you were a Yee yourself.

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

–Steven Stanley
May 28, 2022
Photos: Robert Velasco

Tags: Lauren Yee, Los Angeles Theater Review, Sierra Madre Playhouse