DIM SUM, DAD JOKES,
AND DOWNTOWN DELIRIUM

It’s ridiculous, but Richard Chang’s solo
show serves up wordplay, warmth,
and a wonderfully wild cultural mashup.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

“It’s called a Yamaha,” Richard Chang jokes while pointing to his yarmulke.

This and many other puns and plays on words from Hebrew, Yiddish, and Cantonese are on full display in Ai Yah Goy Vey!, a story about Jackie Son, a Chinese food delivery worker searching every inch of NYC for his long lost father.

Written by Chang and directed by Laura Josepher, the solo show — subtitled Adventures of a Dim Sun in Search of His Wanton Father — brings together a friendly array of characters, dance, Chinese opera, and parodies of pop songs in an endearing tale of self-discovery. The show has all the energy and hallmarks of downtown theater: Not-so-well-hidden props (made by Chang) descend from the ceiling; Karen Boyer‘s costumes are donned on stage, and then unceremoniously dumped in a nearby bin when not needed anymore; and Chang addresses the audience directly, while never making them a part of the story or the world of the play. At A.R.T./New York Theatres, where Pan Asian Rep’s Ai Yah Goy Vey! opened yesterday, you’ll feel more like a passerby on the sidewalk to Jackie’s adventure rather than a static observer behind a fourth wall.

Sheryl Liu‘s simple multi-platform set receives video and image projections, hides props in secret compartments, and provides modest cover for Richard’s preparations to introduce a new character. Howard Ho’s sound design brings urban background noise to life, alongside karaoke tracks to which Richard sings clever heartwarming parody songs, highlighting jokes with the Jin Ban gong, an instrument commonly used in Chinese opera to punctuate humor.

But no one goes to see a solo show for the set and props, they go to see a story told by an engaging and interesting storyteller. Chang gives an energetic and inviting performance as Jackie Son, who smirks and schleps everywhere on stage (and everywhere in New York as the story unfolds) in a sweet performance viewers can’t help but root for.

Along the journey, audiences will meet Jackie’s Chinese opera diva mother, fellow immigrants, rabbis, and eventually Jackie’s Jewish comedian father — each brought to ridiculous life by Chang. The funniest moments in the show come from the juxtaposition of Cantonese and Chinese words that sound eerily similar to words in the Yiddish and Hebrew canon. Somehow, the old-school accent from Jewish immigrants to New York in the late 19th century that came from a mix of Yiddish and English feels quite at home inside Richard’s Cantonese-to-English accent. Dance and dream progressions delight in their deliriousness. Throw in a shadow puppet, a lightsaber fight, and a ballet sequence, and you have an entertaining if not wild evening.

Ai Yah Goy Vey! focuses heavily on the experience of a son of Chinese and Jewish culture. But any audience familiar with the immigrant experience, or the desire to deepen one’s knowledge of their ancestry, or who’s simply in love with the multicultural maelstrom that is The Big Apple, can take a bite out of this show with a big heart.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦