Plays about Community

Paper Summary:

In this article the writer examines two plays and looks at what they have to say about community. The plays discussed are 'Mom, Dad, I'm Living with a White Girl' by Marty Chan and 'House of Sacred Cows' by Padma Viswanathan. The writer points out that each of the plays deals with a family in an ethnic community and in both cases a family that is part of an ethnic community embedded in a majority white society in a different country. The writer shows the tensions created in the family that are caused by the culture differences.

From the Paper:

"Community is a central issue in many stories told in the theater, and it is a central issue in the two plays 'Mom, Dad, I'm Living with a White Girl' by Marty Chan and 'House of Sacred Cows' by Padma Viswanathan. Each deals with a family in an ethnic community, in both cases a family that is part of an ethnic community embedded in a majority white society in a different country. The younger generation is more part of the majority culture than is the older generation, which creates tensions within the family and between members of the family and the majority culture. This latter element is strong in the Chan play in which a recurring fantasy involves scenes from an imaginary movie called the Yellow Claw, a satire on racist interpretations of Chinese culture by Hollywood."

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