Theater Review: Tony-winning playwright DavidHenryHwang and composer JeanineTesori satirize American-Chinese relations in their ambitious musical-within-a-play, 'Soft Power'
) is being billed as a "musical-within-a-play," but that mild description doesn't begin to aptly capture the fever dream that is. Now receiving its New York premiere at The Public Theater, the show tackles East-West relations, the failings of American democracy, the last presidential election, the "problematical" aspects of the classic musical, and the near-fatal real-life stabbing of Hwang.
The piece is narrated by DHW , a stand-in for the playwright, who, shortly before the 2016 presidential election, meets with Xue Xing , a visiting Chinese theatrical producer from Shanghai. Aware of DHW's reputation as a writer who "has a proven ability to create smash hit shows for Broadway," Xing asks him to adapt a popular Chinese rom-com film into a musical for his new theater in Shanghai.
By the time Act II begins with a meta-theatrical scene in which a group of panelists discuss the very musical we've been watching on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, it becomes clear that coherence has flown out the window. The story then resumes with the new president declaring war on China, and Xue Xing frantically working behind the scenes to negotiate a diplomatic solution involving the creation of a "new Silk Road.
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