On March 26, 2014, FBI agents raided California state senator Leland Yee’s home and offices in what would become, according to the Los Angeles Times, one of the biggest public corruption scandals in San Francisco history. Arrested as part of a five-year investigation targeting the flamboyant gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, Senator Yee admitted in a plea deal to racketeering and accepting quid pro quo deals. For playwright Lauren Yee, the case hit close to home: Her father, Larry Yee, was an enthusiastic supporter of the politician, even volunteering for the senator’s secretary of state run. Moreover, Larry heads the Yee Fung Toy Family Association, a historic Chinatown-based organization that connects and supports Chinese immigrant families and their descendants who share the Yee surname, related or not. Not only did that name get stained on the day charges were announced, it was a stain writ large on campaign signs all over the city.
Now in a second production at the Goodman, Lauren Yee’s play King of the Yees is built around the scandal—sort of. More central to the show, directed by Joshua Kahan Brody, is its metatheatrical framework. Ostensibly, we’re at a performance of an autobiographical two-hander by Lauren Yee that gets crashed by the “real” Larry Yee (Francis Jue). As Daniel Smith and Angela Lin play Larry and Lauren “onstage,” the “real” Lauren Yee (Stephenie Soohyun Park) tries to reconnect with her father “offstage.” If that sounds like some multilayered Charlie Kaufmanesque navel gazing, that’s because it is—but it’s put to extraordinary and heartwarming use here. Cheeky as the playwright gets—lion dancers do the “Cha Cha Slide,” elders bargain for their grandkids’ admittance to coveted California universities, actors commiserate “offstage” about auditioning in LA, and an audience plant (Rammel Chan) chats with folks onstage—the earnest story at the show’s core, about a young woman grappling with her own life expectations as she explores her roots, never fades from focus.
One of the key arguments the playwright within the play has with herself is who exactly her story is for. When her father claims that it speaks to “honorary Yees,” the offstage Lauren points out at the Goodman audience: “How can they be Yees? They’re white. They’re all white,” she observes wryly; another character then notes that the flyers for the play weren’t translated into Chinese. In reality, Yee knows exactly to whom she’s speaking. In this, she’s like the best comedians, who know and have always known that good jokes land differently in different audiences’ ears, and that this is something to be leaned into, not backed away from. v
Through 4/30: Wed-Thu 7:30 PM, Fri 8 PM, Sat 2 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM; also Tue 4/18, 7:30 PM; Sun 4/23 and Thu 4/27, 2 PM, Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn, 312-443-3800, goodmantheatre.org, $10-$38.
