“King of the Yees,” a new play by Lauren Yee, opened on Monday at Signature Theater, offering a comedic and unconventional exploration of a Chinese American father-daughter relationship. The play centers on Yee’s real-life relationship with her father, Larry Yee, whose stories, as noted by the playwright, blend fact with fiction in a manner reminiscent of family lore.
The narrative begins as a relatively straightforward depiction of the dynamic between Larry, an outspoken and proud patriarch, and Lauren, his accomplished yet somewhat reserved daughter. Francis Jue portrays Larry with a mix of cunning and naïveté, alternating between doting affection and critical challenge. Kelly Marie Tran, making her New York stage debut as Lauren, captures the tensions inherent in her role: success met with pride, coupled with expectations unmet, such as having children and maintaining geographical proximity to San Francisco, Larry’s home and the base of the Yee Fung Toy Family Association—a social organization for members of the Yee diaspora.
The play further blurs lines between reality and representation through a play-within-the-play device, featuring younger versions of Lauren and Larry portrayed by Maureen Sebastian and David Shih, while the elder Larry intermittently disrupts the proceedings. This metatheatrical element is heightened by Larry’s involvement in the 2014 political campaign of Leland Yee, an actual politician who ran for California’s secretary of state, adding a layer of historical context and complexity to the narrative.
Yee’s work, which echoes her previous plays “Cambodian Rock Band” and “Mother Russia,” grapples with cultural identity and stereotype, particularly the competing emotions that arise from belonging to a heritage group that is simultaneously a source of pride and a target of clichéd portrayals. Much of the tension arises from Lauren’s decision to live in Berlin with her husband and her perceived distance from San Francisco’s Chinatown and its evolving social fabric. Larry’s commentary about the neighborhood—such as his dismissive remark about the quality of local food—underscores the generational and cultural disconnect that permeates their relationship.
The play includes moments that draw attention to issues of identity and representation beyond the central family, including jokes about language and ethnicity. For instance, an actor playing a Chinese character is revealed to be Korean and adopted, while another character humorously acknowledges Irish ancestry, highlighting the fluid and sometimes complicated nature of cultural identity in America.
The production, directed by Joshua Kahan Brody, shifts into a more fantastical and absurd tone in its second act. The storyline turns into a quest in which Lauren searches for her missing father, guided by three eccentric elders who challenge her to honor ancestral traditions through knowledge of Chinatown’s cultural heritage. This journey symbolizes Lauren’s quest for a deeper connection to her roots, both personal and cultural.
Overall, “King of the Yees” addresses with humor and insight the paradoxes of hyphenated American identity, managing to avoid sentimentality while candidly examining the complexities of family, culture, and belonging in contemporary society.