The Chinese Lady
by Lloyd Suh

Name: The Chinese Lady
Brand: Lloyd Suh
SKU: 9780822239901
Rating: 4.27 (110 reviews)

Off-Broadway

The Chinese Lady Book Cover — The Chinese Lady Cover

Highlights

Female

Male

90 mins 19th Century Role(s) for Asian Actor(s) Strong Role for Leading Man (Star Vehicle) Strong Role for Leading Woman (Star Vehicle) Unit Set/Multiple Settings Period Costumes

Awards & Recognition

Drama Desk Award Lucille Lortel Award

Nominee: Two 2022 Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Play Nominee: Five 2022 Lucille Lortel Awards, including Outstanding Revival

Synopsis

Afong Moy is 14 years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834.

Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.”

For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet.

As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity.

Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy, The Chinese Lady is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

Press Reviews

"Afong Moy might not have fulfilled her intention of educating and connecting the world in her life, but The Chinese Lady sure has the promise and potential [to] do so."
— The Front Row Center

"It takes only minutes of The Chinese Lady to see that… playwright Lloyd Suh [has] constructed the dramatic equivalent of a perfect cabinet. Every hinge moves smoothly; the herringbone joins are a low-key marvel. You can almost see yourself in its hard-won polish… Suh’s version of Afong Moy is wonderful."
— Time Out New York

Characters

Character	Gender	Age	Description
Atung Male, older than Afong MoyAuthor's Note: These characters should be played by Asian or Asian American performers. They should speak in their natural and organic speaking voices, with no affected dialect or accent. In an ideal circumstance, the role of Afong Moy would be played by a performer with a similar physicality to the historical Afong Moy. While further acknowledging that feet like Afong Moy’s no longer exist, I encourage producers to seek out and consider performers with physical or mobility disabilities. The text of the play acknowledges that the performers’ bodies are not the bodies of their historical counterparts. The production should as well. Regardless of whether or not the performers have physical disabilities, at no point should they pretend to a type of mobility that they do not possess. In some cases, of course, this may mean that certain physical actions described in the play may not occur literally. As with their speaking voices, the characters should simply move the way the actors move.	male	—	Male, older than Afong MoyAuthor's Note: These characters should be played by Asian or Asian American performers. They should speak in their natural and organic speaking voices, with no affected dialect or accent. In an ideal circumstance, the role of Afong Moy would be played by a performer with a similar physicality to the historical Afong Moy. While further acknowledging that feet like Afong Moy’s no longer exist, I encourage producers to seek out and consider performers with physical or mobility disabilities. The text of the play acknowledges that the performers’ bodies are not the bodies of their historical counterparts. The production should as well. Regardless of whether or not the performers have physical disabilities, at no point should they pretend to a type of mobility that they do not possess. In some cases, of course, this may mean that certain physical actions described in the play may not occur literally. As with their speaking voices, the characters should simply move the way the actors move.
Afong Moy Female, from 14 years old to advanced age	female	—	Female, from 14 years old to advanced age