Mind your language
PANGDEMONIUM, one of the best theatre companies in Singapore, has picked David Henry Hwang's play Chinglish to be its last show of the year. Hwang, of course, is the most famous among Asian-American playwrights, being the first to win a Tony Award for his 1988 play M Butterfly as well as other awards such as the Obie for F O B.
Like these and nearly all of his other plays, Chinglish explores the always tricky meeting between the East and West. It tells the story of Midwestern American businessman Daniel Cavanaugh (Daniel Jenkins) who travels to Guiyang in China to win a contract to make English signages for the city's new cultural centre.
He employs a British translator (Matt Grey) who speaks fluent Mandarin to negotiate with the culture minister (Adrian Pang) and his vice-minister (Oon Shu An). But the minister has already promised the contract to a relative. Consequently, in a comical reversal of gender tropes, Cavanaugh finds himself going to bed with the beautiful vice-minister to snag the contract. But tables have a funny way of turning unexpectedly.
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