A work portrays the making of DW Griffith's film 'Broken Blossoms'

After the deeply divisive reception of “The Birth of a Nation,” Director D.W. Griffith released Broken Blossoms, in which an abused young girl finds solace in the company of a kind Chinese man. The 1919 silent film, based on Thomas Burke’s short story The Chink and the Child and also known as The Yellow Man and the Girl, was not only a box office hit but also a remarkably sympathetic depiction of a Chinese character, as it was released amid anti-miscegenation laws and during the era of the “Yellow Peril,” a widespread anti-Chinese sentiment across the United States.

“Griffith chose a tragic story of impossible love, impossible love in this world of passions, prejudices and brutal forces… and 'Broken Blossoms' came to the screen, a masterpiece of cinema,” it reads. New York Times Review“But while the film is clearly Mr. Griffith’s achievement, it is not his alone. Several anonymous people must have contributed to it, in addition to the cast.”

More than a century later, a new play puts that film’s unnamed participants center stage. Titled “Unbroken Blossoms,” East West Players’ world premiere applauds the two Chinese consultants hired to work on Griffith’s interracial romance film while a white actor plays the film’s Chinese immigrant character, wearing an elastic band around his head to make his eyes appear slanted onscreen.

“While this was a ‘yellowface’ practice and, by today’s standards, problematic, it was progressive at the time,” said the play’s director, Jeff Liu. “But it’s part of our Hollywood history and I don’t think we gain anything by erasing it. We can learn from it, engage with it and build on it as we continue to tell our own stories more proactively.”

“Unbroken Blossoms” features James B. Leong, who went on to write and direct the film “Lotus Blossom” and act in more than 80 films, and Moon Kwan, who went on to direct more than 50 films in China while distributing Chinese titles in the United States. Philip W. Chung, playwright and creative director of by director Justin Lin YOMYOMF began writing the piece a decade ago after learning about the consultants' existence from a documentary on the history of Chinese-American cinema. “Hollywood Chinese”.

“I love movies and I was amazed that there were people who looked like me in important roles in the industry back then, because that’s not something you learn when you start studying film,” she explained. “The most fascinating thing for me is that they both became filmmakers after this movie. The very idea that someone back then would do that, when it’s still hard to do it now, was very inspiring.”

The lack of historical record on Leong and Kwan’s contributions to “Broken Blossoms” was “liberating” for Chung, who fictionalized their personalities and perspectives on how effective a Hollywood cultural consultant can be: On set, Kwan, played by Ron Song, is eager to help a white actor authentically represent the Chinese population in a silent film, while Leong, played by Gavin Kawin Lee, cynically calls their hiring a studio publicity stunt.

The play also dramatizes the argument that Griffith made “Broken Blossoms,” as well as “Intolerance,” in response to the backlash against “The Birth of a Nation,” which sparked the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. “He was blindsided by accusations of racism and intolerance, and then became very defensive of his work,” said Chung, who researched Griffith through books and museum archives. “These films seemed like he was responding to his critics: ‘You think I’m racist? I’m going to make these films that will show you I’m not.’”

Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish in the 1919 film “Broken Blossoms.”

(United Archives via Getty Images)

Throughout the work, some moments that represent the making of the film are presented with absurd humor, given the Casting a white actor for a Chinese role and the hiring of two consultants for cultural authenticity. (Still, Richard Barthelmess's performance as Cheng Huan in the film was hailed by critics as the best of his career.) Others are presented with palpable horror, as when Griffith mocked Lillian Gish to get her performance in The closet scene from the movie.

Staging a scene like that and playing it out night after night “requires actors who are willing to go there and not be afraid of what happened in the story,” Liu said of Arye Gross, who plays Griffith. “It’s about everyone involved in the show having permission and trust that we’re telling this story, not just to create a portrait of a flawed human being, but also to explore the aspect of white privilege in the creation of art in Hollywood.”

Though the majority of the plot of “Unbroken Blossoms” is historical fiction, Chung hopes the piece sends a real message specifically to filmmakers and film fans of Asian descent, especially those striving to further improve culturally authentic representation on screen.

“What I wanted to make clear in the piece is how much progress has been made since this film, but also how much hasn’t changed,” Chung said. “But I also find it somewhat inspiring that in some ways this is a shared struggle. It’s not just something we’re going through for the first time now, and there’s a long history that we’re connected to, even if it’s been largely forgotten by the general public.”

“But we have to learn from that history so we can take advantage of it and move forward.”

Gavin Kawin Lee, left, Ron Song and Arye Gross in “Unbroken Blossoms” at East West Players.

(Zev Rose Woolley)