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At the heart of this spectacle is, of course, Bruce Lee, whose slow simmer to stardom exploded into immortality in the early 1970s with The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, and a couple of others, before his death in 1972 at age 32. But what Hwang is really getting at, and what gives the show what heft it has, is the playwright's returning to one of his core themes: the ability of culture (and show business) to transcend and even obliterate borders of the mind, the spirit, and even the planet itself. The last is what matters here, as Lee, who was born and lived much of his adult life in the United States, but was raised in Hong Kong by his opera-star father, represents one of the most succinct fusions of Chinese stateliness and American glitz to hit the big time. Lee first made his name on these shores in the short-lived pulp-crime TV series The Green Hornet, and that brought him enough fame in Hong Kong that he could write his own ticket—which, in turn, led him to conquer the hearts and minds of violence-hungry American men for decades to come. He even married an American woman, Linda Emery. So all the frantic movement, the structured chaos, that pops in from the wings to punctuate the scene changes and nudge along the story makes sense after all. How better to demonstrate Lee's impact than by comparing the severe athleticism for which he's so famous with the lithe and angular ministrations of popular dance, as the idioms of the Old Country and the new collide in the music as well? Against Du Yun's rollicking clash-of-the-millennia score, choreographer Sonya Tayeh has so cannily blended ancient Asian steps with the liquidy go-go dancing of the mid-20th century that it's impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. (Emmanuel Brown is the fight director.) From a street-gang brawl to the psychedelic set of The Green Hornet to an all-out battle on the set of Lee's first starring film, this ironclad marriage of the traditional and the trendy creates something more stirring, more exciting, and more eye-popping than either would be able to fashion on its own.
The predictability of these elements adds little to the texture of Kung Fu, but also hardly detracts from it—this is a play too dynamic to get tripped up by a minor mistake for long. That said, Hwang does begin to run out of steam late in Act II, with the final scenes lacking the suspense, catharsis, or especially the triumphant oomph of apotheosis to which everything before seems to be methodically building. Hwang is writing about the making of a contemporary legend, but he's also writing about a man, and he doesn't resolve both satisfactorily. Silverman's direction, though precisely paced and on target throughout, has trouble maintaining the energy during the "down" moments, when we must most strongly experience the life force that sustained Lee—a scene set between an inert injured Bruce and his son, Brandon (Bradley Fong), is particularly staid, waffling so much between comedy and drama that it achieves neither. Scenic designer David Zinn likewise gets mired in the mundane rather than losing himself in the magical, providing a head-scratching warehouse set that offers up lots of shelves and bookcases but no definable personality. Costume designer Anita Yavich and lighting designer Ben Stanton, however, are better at ratcheting up the East-meets-West style quotient. Strole adeptly leads the supporting cast with a charming portrayal that milks from Linda every bit of the reluctant occasion of forcing Bruce to live the reality he'd rather ignore; the woman she shows, who's a potent mix of subservient and trendsetting, could not be a better a match for the character. Jue, too, has found an ideal balance, in this case between haughty and heartwarming, to fuel Hoi-Chuen as the staunch defender of the Old Ways, but without whom the new paradigm would never occur. Peter Kim stands out among the rest of the large-ish ensemble as a milquetoast Bruce makes into a man and a movie-mogul bigwig who tilts against Hollywood bigotry to get Bruce onscreen. Unsurprisingly, though, the real star is Horibe. His Bruce is youthful and energetic, yes, but also dark, letting him communicate with compelling depth Bruce's confliction between his upbringing and the role he's destined to fill in the modern world. Horibe's line readings are at times a bit stilted, but he has charisma and a natural sense of comedy that sand down the rough edges quite a bit. And, perhaps it goes without saying, but he wields a beguiling grace and crystalline focus on perfection that leaves you wondering at times if he's channeling Lee as he slices through those fights. Or maybe dances. Or maybe it doesn't matter. One country's art of self-defense may well be another's action movie, and the extent to which it matters (if at all) frequently exists few places beyond the eye of the viewer. Hwang is arguing that we're all more than the sum of our cultural parts, and few people proved that better than Lee. Thanks to Hwang and Horibe, he's received a fitting, if imperfect, tribute in Kung Fu.
Kung Fu
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