Casting Fu Manchu by Eelyn Lee

Abstract

Commissioned by Chinese Arts Now, a UK organization that typically supports live theatre, music, and dance, but responded to the pandemic with a series of digital commissions, Casting Fu Manchu took the form of an edited digital performance that reflected Lee’s dual backgrounds in devised theatre and filmmaking. The gender-conscious casting choices were particularly striking in dialogue with an extract from the movie Daughter of the Dragon, in which Anna May Wong, playing Fu Manchu’s daughter, pledges to become his son in order to avenge him, a moment that queers assumptions of East Asian femininity even as it reinforces conventional gender roles. At the close of the performance, when the cast listed their dream roles in theatre and film, we were left to reflect on how few of these modest dreams are likely to be realized in an industry within which, as York Loh suggested, casting directors who grew up with Fu Manchu are still clinging to the image of China and East Asia he perpetuated, unwilling to cast Asians who stray too far from his distorted image.