History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, operates on a mission to produce theatrical works that examine the true stories and real people of Minnesota, unearthing stories we otherwise would never hear of鈥攕tories like Harry Chin鈥檚.
During the Chinese Exclusion Act鈥攁 60-year period when the U.S. banned immigration of Chinese laborers and anti-Chinese Americans forced Chinese Americans out of their communities鈥擟hin entered the U.S. via forged papers. Known as a 鈥減aper son,鈥� Chin experienced a violent detention and interrogation that led him to a double life of secrecy once freed.
Playwright Jessica while searching for the subject of her History Theatre commission at the Minnesota Historical Society. 鈥淚 knew that I really wanted to write about the Chinese Exclusion Era because it was a period of history that I never studied in school but as I've grown to hear about how it had an enormous impact that was decades long, it felt like a missing piece of my understanding and the understanding of our collective history,鈥� says Huang. When she stumbled upon Chin鈥檚 testimony, she discovered her foundation.
She reached out to Sheila, Harry鈥檚 daughter, in 2015 and the play鈥攚hile grounded in the way 鈥渢his political action impacted their personal lives鈥濃攎orphed into a story about fathers and daughters.
Set in 1970, the play opens on the anniversary of the death of Sheila鈥檚 mother, Laura, who returns as a ghost to visit Sheila and Harry.
鈥淪omebody once described my work as 鈥榯he supernatural in the everyday鈥� and I think that I sort of exist inside of that realm naturally as a person,鈥� says Huang, who is of Jewish and Chinese heritage. 鈥淭he benevolent visitations or hauntings from my ancestors, those are things that I feel like I have a familiarity with. In my world view there is a place for ghostly presences.鈥�
But Huang鈥檚 piece is a spiritual ghost story. 鈥淭here's a line in a play that says, 鈥榟aunting is helping.鈥� Sometimes that's a painful thing when we have to reckon with the things that haunt us, whether they're literal ghosts or more figurative but when we unpack and reveal and come to terms with the things that have happened to us, that's when we can start to heal from it.鈥�
The play made the annual Kilroy鈥檚 List in 2017 and was recently showcased in a developmental reading at Vassar College & New York Stage and Film鈥檚 Powerhouse Theater ahead of its in March 2020.
The current climate is ripe for a re-examination of this drama that unearths another time of racism and xenophobia in American history鈥攁s Broadway鈥檚 Allegiance did when it dramatized the story of the Japanese internment camps鈥攁nd calls upon audiences to confront issues of immigration, nationalism, and its consequences.
Revisiting the work has allowed Huang to merge the intuitive writing style of her early career with the technique she鈥檚 honed through a MacDowell Fellowship, two Playwrights鈥� Center fellowships, and having her work produced by New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theatre Company, and more.
Huang considers this Powerhouse reading a restoration of Paper Dreams. With any luck, she鈥檒l also reveal a piece of American history that, while it haunts us, will also heal.
