Table Of ContentBEST amErican play of 2011!
—TimE magazinE
a play
DaviD Henry Hwang
By ThE auThor of M. Butterfly and yellow face
Chinglish
Books by David Henry Hwang
Available from TCG
Chinglish
Flower Drum Song
Book by David Henry Hwang
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Golden Child
Trying to Find Chinatown
includes:
Bondage
The Dance and the Railroad
Family Devotions
FOB
The House of Sleeping Beauties
The Sound of a Voice
Trying to Find Chinatown
The Voyage
Yellow Face
Chinglish
A plAy
David Henry Hwang
Chinese translations
by Candace Mui Ngam Chong
Chinese language editing
by Joanna C. Lee
THeATre CommuniCATions Group
new york
2012
Chinglish is copyright © 2012 by David Henry Hwang
Chinglish is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc.,
520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156
All Rights Reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine,
radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
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the publisher.
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protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other
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cational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s rep-
resentative: William Craver, Paradigm, 360 Park Avenue South, 16th Floor, New
York, NY 10010, (212) 897-6400.
The publication of Chinglish by David Henry Hwang through TCG’s Book Program
is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support
of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales
and Distribution.
CIP data information is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
eISBN: 978-1-55936-426-3
Book design and composition by Lisa Govan
First Edition, May 2012
Chinglish
proDuCTion HisTory
Chinglish was developed at the Lark Play Development Center (John
Eisner, Artistic Director; Michael Robertson, Managing Director),
New York City, in association with The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis,
Artistic Director), New York City.
Chinglish premiered at the Goodman Theatre (Robert Falls, Artis-
tic Director; Roche Schulfer, Executive Director) on June 18, 2011.
It was directed by Leigh Silverman; the set design was by David
Korins, the costume design was by Anita Yavich, the lighting design
was by Brian MacDevitt, the projection design was by Jeff Sugg and
Shawn Duan, the sound design was by Darron L. West; the cultural
advisors were Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith, the Mandarin Chinese
translator was Candace Mui Ngam Chong, the production stage man-
ager was Alden Vasquez and the dramaturgs were Oskar Eustis and
Tanya Palmer. The cast was:
daniel cavanaugh James Waterston
peter timms Stephen Pucci
cai guoliang Larry Lei Zhang
xi yan Jennifer Lim
qian/prosecutor li Angela Lin
bing/judge geming Johnny Wu
zhao Christine Lin
understudies Norm Boucher, Angela Lin,
Brian Nishii, Clara Wong
Chinglish was produced on Broadway by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry
Frankel, Jay and Cindy Gutterman/Cathy Chernoff, Heni Koenigs-
berg/Lily Fan, Joseph and Matthew Deitch, Dasha Epstein, Ronald
and Marc Frankel, Barry and Carole Kaye, Mary Lu Roffe, The
Broad way Consortium, Ken Davenport, Filerman Bensinger, Herbert
Gold smith, Jam Theatricals, Olympus Theatricals, Playful Produc-
tions, David and Barbara Stoller, Roy Gottlieb and Hunter Arnold, in
association with the Goodman Theatre, and Jeremy Scott Blaustein,
associate producer. It opened at the Longacre Theatre on October 27,
2011, with these changes: Daniel Cavanaugh was played by Gary
Wilmes; the understudies were Tony Carlin, Angela Lin, Brian Nishii
and Vivian Chiu; the production stage manager was Stephen M. Kaus.
CHArACTers
daniel cavanaugh: a businessman, Caucasian, American, forties
peter timms: a consultant, Caucasian, British, forties
cai guoliang: the Cultural Minister, Chinese, male, fifties
xi yan: Vice Minister of Culture, Chinese, female, forties
miss qian: a translator, Chinese
bing: Cai’s nephew, a translator, Chinese, twenties
zhao: a translator, Chinese, female
judge xu geming: Xi’s husband, forty to fifty (played by the actor
who plays Bing)
prosecutor li: female, thirties (played by the actor who plays Qian)
waiter, hotel manager, driver: doubling at director’s discretion
noTe
Cast breakdown: 2 Caucasian males, 3 Asian females, 2 Asian males.
seTTinG
The present. An American assembly room and the city of Guiyang,
China.
eDiTor’s noTe on lAnGuAGe
Dialogue is spoken in Mandarin Chinese, the modern standard lan-
guage known in China as Putonghua (or “common language”). Dia-
logue in bold indicates English translation (displayed in supertitles in
production) of dialogue spoken in modern standard Chinese. Note:
the English translation doesn’t always match the Mandarin.
Chinese dialogue will be displayed in two formats: traditional
characters: 繁體中文 and pinyin, the Romanization system from the
People’s Republic of China.
For instructional purposes today, most people in America, Austra-
lia and Europe learn Putonghua using the pinyin system, which has four
standardized tones for vowel pronunciation, numerically arranged: 1st
tone (high, marked ā, ē, ī, ō, ū); 2nd tone (high rising, marked á, é, í, ó,
ú), 3rd tone (low falling-rising, marked ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ), 4th tone (high fall-
ing, marked à, è, ì, ò, ù) and also the neutral tone, which is not marked.
As with any complex tonal language, there are exceptions to pro-
nunciation rules. These are often adjustments to facilitate the flow
of the language. One such example is the word “bù” (不), which is
the negating adverb, usually pronounced in the 4th tone. However,
when it is used before another 4th tone, it changes to the 2nd tone
(bú). Another exception is the succession of words in the 3rd tone,
when all will change to the 2nd tone except the final 3rd tone. Chi-
nese characters sometimes have multiple pronunciations (changing in
tones, sometimes even changing the vowels), depending on context,
and whether they are used as verbs or nouns.
While normally “tonal changes” are not marked in standard
printed pinyin, we have made all of the adjustments as a guide to
