‘Chinese Republicans’ Explores Identity With Comedy and Sermonizing

In “Chinese Republicans,” an engaging and well-meaning but ultimately frustrating new play by Alex Lin, we meet two young women who ostensibly want to help make the world a better place. Inexplicably, both have opted for careers in investment banking.Katie, a recent graduate of New York University’s prestigious Stern School of Business, has arrived at Friedman Wallace — think Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, both cited in the play — all bright and shiny and eager to rise through the ranks. Ellen, another Stern alumna, is introduced in her late 40s, while serving as the bank’s managing director of South American trading—a position she has acquired, we will quickly learn, through decades of clawing and groveling.Later, though, in a flashback to 1995, we’re introduced to Ellen as Ailin, the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Here she’s an idealistic ingenue, much like Katie, being interviewed by Phyllis, who is two decades older and the first woman of Chinese descent to become managing director at a New York bank. In one of the numerous didactic monologues strung through “Republicans,” which is set primarily in 2019, Phyllis tells Ailin she will need to Anglicize her name and change her attitude.“I’ve learned that people have a way that they like to do things here at Friedman Wallace,” Phyllis intones. “One of the things that they like to do is test people like you and me. Especially when they wear their bleeding heart on their sleeve.” She adds that Ellen will have to “be smarter” and “work harder” than the corrupt men around her, who “will still have the audacity to rise so high above you, that all they see when they look down is a stupid little Chinese girl.”You can probably see where this is going. Ms. Lin, an undeniably talented writer, is still in her 20s herself — she was recently included in Forbes 30 Under 30, the annual list of up-and-comers in various fields — and “Chinese Republicans” betrays not only a certain naivete but a self-righteousness that many have come to associate with a generation incubated on polarizing social media and rigid, sometimes unrealistic ideals.Ms. Lin’s play presents a world in which prospects are defined by identity: race, ethnicity, gender, and to a lesser extent class, that most undervalued disruptor of our supposed meritocracy. It’s observed at one point that Katie “doesn’t even look Chinese,” which Ellen obviously sees as an asset for the young woman and, as her mentor, herself; Phyllis, who is in part Filipino, has had to be even more brutally exacting and self-sacrificing in charting a course for herself and others.It’s suggested, by the title and in the text, that political affiliation reflects moral character: Ellen was once a Democrat, we discover, but she had to convert in her evolution from naïf to shark. By the end, it’s proposed that neither major party has done much to help the disenfranchised — one point that’s hard to contest, at least.More problematically from a dramatic standpoint, the playwright has her characters pontificate at length, which might have worked if this one-act piece wasn’t predominantly naturalistic. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been at a lunch meeting where a friend or colleague suddenly stood up and launched into a meticulously formed sermon on sinister geopolitical forces and the social hypocrisy that fuels them.That’s not to say that “Chinese Republicans,” which has opened off-Broadway via the Roundabout Theatre Company, is entirely preachy or without nuance. Ellen can act despicably, but her callous ruthlessness is informed by struggle and loss, and Jennifer Ikeda’s measured performance further humanizes her. This is despite certain clichés suggested by the character, a childless divorcée hoping to be a maternal figure to Katie — who, conveniently, yearns in vain for her mom’s approval.Jodi Long gets the play’s most deliciously sarcastic lines as Phyllis, whom we observe mostly as a potty-mouthed sexagenarian railing against the excesses of political correctness. Jully Lee brings a wonderful goofiness to Iris, a Chinese-born software engineer working at Friedman Wallace on an H-1B visa; the actress is hilarious in a fantastical game-show sequence that’s enhanced by Hana Kim’s giddy projection design.Anna Zavelson, a rising musical theater star and wholesome beauty, smartly manages Katie’s journey, which takes a different turn than you’ll expect at first, thanks in part to a deceptive love interest who’s just one of several sinister, predatory men mentioned in the play. Notably, while this production has a male director — Chay Yew, who guides the players adroitly — only one male character appears on stage, briefly and for laughs. And he’s gay.“Chinese Republicans” is a satire, of course, and the injustices and corruption it documents are real. Still, I left the theater hoping that its young playwright will learn to more fully recognize the shades of gray that make these issues more challenging and, at the same time, can enable progress.

‘Chinese Republicans’ Explores Identity With Comedy and Sermonizing

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