Charles Francis Chan Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery

2018
Director

Written by Lloyd Suh

Produced by the Stanford Asian American Theater Project

I revel in confusion, in discomfort, in uncertainty. Maybe you don’t go see theater to escape and relax, but to cringe and scream. What’s life but something that makes you feel like you don’t know who you are?

The issues discussed in Chan are just as salient as they were in 1967—they’ve just morphed. On the surface, Chan is about stereotypes and representation in media. On a second level, Chan considers the oppression of Asian Americans by white Americans. But deep down, Chan is really about our own self-subjugation, self-hatred, and self-oppression as Asian Americans. If we can’t embrace our glorious history just as deeply as the shameful parts, gaining a unifying acceptance of ourselves, how will we ever make progress?

—Excerpt from the Chan Director’s Note

Images courtesy of Derrick Liu