This week, a heartwarming play premiered at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theaters. The Fortune Teller’s opening night was October 28th and the play runs through November 4th. It’s a story about a family through the generations, starting in the 1800s, and the destiny that lies before each of the members as they are tied together by familial legacy. The play was co-produced by CHUANG Stage, a translingual Asian American theater company in Boston, and TC Squared Theatre Company. It was written by Boston playwright and actor, Christina R. Chan, directed by Kai Chao, and associate directed by Alison Yueming Qu.
Playwright Christina Chan spoke about what inspired her to write The Fortune Teller, “I was inspired to write this play when I was talking to the then managing director of the Chinese Historical Society of New England. She told me about this burial site at Mount Hope Cemetery in Mattapan that was where the first Chinese men that came to Boston were buried, and that there were broken headstones and weeds everywhere. And she said something to the effect of, ‘Isn’t that sad that these men’s graves have not been taken care of?’ And I felt really sad because the Chinese, we have ancestral worship because we believe that the spirit, that our ancestor spirit needs to be tended to, that the grave sites need to be clean, the headstones should be perfect, and you bring food to it every year at Bai San.” She continued about the play, “It’s like a whole being that’s being birthed. It’s like a baby on its feet. And there are many midwives that were involved, so I can’t say that I gave labor by myself. There were many, many hands. And so, the baby tonight, which is opening night, is being born. And who knows how many fingers or toes it will have tonight? Hopefully, it’ll have all of them. And that its cries will be heard, and its laughter and its smile will be seen.”
The play alternated timelines from the 1800s in China and the American Sierra Nevada’s where rail work was taking place, to current-day Boston. The imaginative set allowed for smooth transitions back and forth. The complicated relationships between the characters came across as realistic and built up an entire world for the characters to inhabit. The acting from the five performers was thoughtful and well-executed, with no obvious flubbed lines or long pauses. Karla Goo Lang was the standout actor playing Jewel Wong, a mother who is looking for the child she gave up for adoption. She has a natural, easy talent and had the audience rooting for her character.
Associate Director Alison Yueming Qu said about her favorite memory from the project “It’s just the many moments, many meals that we shared with each other. I think putting together this play with an Asian American cast, with a lot of the people working on stage and backstage and being Asian American themselves, I think we intentionally wanted to center with how Asian American creatives love to naturally bring to the room and wanted to be able to support them in many different senses. There were a lot of breaks, really intentional. We wanted to give people a lot of care because making theater is very tiring. There were a lot of meals in the rehearsal room. Our first rehearsal was on the mid-autumn festival. We shared moon cake for three days, constantly, nonstop. Every single rehearsal, we would do moon cake, and then we transitioned into mochi donuts, and then last night, we had dumplings together. It’s just about being able to work with your community and truly bring a play that’s by the community and for the community, that’s awesome.”
Actor Jamie Lin played a woman struggling with infertility and searching for her birth mother, she said, “I’ve said this even from the first experience I had with it, but the first version of this play was my first time working with the majority Asian American cast and production team. So that was very rewarding for me as an AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) theater artist. Getting to watch this evolve over time and just increasingly encourage the AAPI presence behind the scenes as well, and you can see their influence in a lot of design choices that have been made. I’ve really enjoyed kind of seeing this become a fuller Asian American experience with every iteration.”
There was a half-hour panel after the play including Shaina Lu who designed the poster and programs for the production, artist Wen-hao Tien, and playwright Christina Chan, with the conversation led by associate director Alison Qu. The theme of the panel was The Power of Asian American Stories Reflected in Art, and the main topic of discussion was “What does it mean for our stories to be reflected in art?” Audience members weighed in on the topic along with the panelists and it made for a powerful conversation. Christina Chan said, “I write because I want to see myself mirrored and reflected…I write for myself because it’s my curiosity and my identity.” One audience member proclaimed that they were excited about the play “because I think we are allowed to be more things now” and talked about how the play reflected that new freedom for Asian Americans. The Fortune Teller is not alone in stirring up conversation about the Asian American community and their role in this country and in the arts. Thanks to events like The Fortune Teller the conversation is happening in several places around Boston and spreading to the wider community.
