Skip to main content

Face, Race, and Performance: Arousal by Face and Identity Transformation

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Pop with Gods, Shakespeare, and AI

Abstract

This chapter discusses musical theatre, focus on face and race to represent and mimic reality through performance. Historically trace from Ministry Show, Miss Saigon dispute between artistic vs. authentic, to Asian American Playwright David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face on Asian face, to the contemporary musicals Cats, The Lion King, War Paint, and East Asian performance Jekyll & Hyde & So On. Through makeup in Cats and masks in The Lion King, animality and humanity can be melted and combined via theatricality. Cosmetic history can be exemplified by the two business superwomen’s rival story in War Paint. In Jekyll & Hyde & So On, Japanese Director Koki Mitani and his Japanese cast transform Robert Louis Stevenson’s western tragic thriller novel to be a comedy intercultural performance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.britannica.com/art/stagecraft/Theatrical-makeup

  2. 2.

    Cats The Musical Makeup Tutorial ♡ Broadway Musical Theatre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2DWKARavMI

Works Cited

  • Aucoin, Kevyn. 1997. Making Faces. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Begley, Sarah. 2015. Julie Taymor on The Lion King and Her Creative Process. Time, October 9. http://time.com/4065287/julie-taymor-creative-process/. Retrieved on October 4, 2017.

  • Brooks, A. Daphne. 2006. Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850–1910. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, E., and M. McMullan. 1999. Deconstructing Disney. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Y. Mel. 2012. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect, Perverse Modernities. Durham/London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Corson, Richard, James Glavan, and Gore Beverly Norcross. 2016. Stage Makeup. 10th ed. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, Kathy. 1997. ‘My Body is My Art’ Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia. European Journal of Women’s Studies 4: 23–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edgerton, G., and K.M. Jackson. 1996. Redesigning Pocahontas. Journal of Popular Film &Television 24 (2).

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, D. Ben. 2016. The Anxiety of the Unforeseen in Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Inquiries Journal: Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts 8 (11): 1/1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hwang, David Henry. 2009. Yellow Face. New York: Theatre Communications Group. Kindle Version e-Book.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Esther Kim. 2015. The Theatre of David Henry Hwang. London/New York: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orozco, Lourdes, and Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, eds. 2015. Performing Animality: Animals in Performance Practices. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, Robert Louis. 2012. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, ed. Stephen Greenblatt, vol. 2, 9th ed., 832–874. New York: Norton. Print.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taymor, Julie. 2005. Interview by Stephen Pizzello in “A Conversation with Julie Taymor”. In Theater and Film: A Comparative Anthology, ed. Robert Knopf. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viertel, Jack. 2008. Fun with Race and the Media: An Interview with the Playwright. American Theatre 25 (4): 60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vraketta, Georgia. 2014. The Representations of Gender, Sexuality and Race in Disney’s The Lion King. www. Academia.edu, July 6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wasko, Janet. 2001. Understanding Disney. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Witchel, Alex. Actors Equity Attacks Casting of ‘Miss Saigon’. The New York Times. Posted July 26, 1990. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/26/theater/actors-equity-attacks-casting-of-miss-saigon.html. Retrieved on October 3, 2017.

  • Worthen, Hana. 2018. Book Review. “Performing Animality: Animals in Performance Practices”. Theatre Topics 28 (2): 186–187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Cinematography

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iris H. Tuan .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Tuan, I.H. (2020). Face, Race, and Performance: Arousal by Face and Identity Transformation. In: Pop with Gods, Shakespeare, and AI. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7297-5_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics