Jodi Long, now 68, has led an unusual and unusually varied life. She is an award-winning actress with the distinction of being the first Asian-American to receive an Emmy for performing. She has traveled the world and visited seminal sites related to her Chinese, Japanese, Australian, and Scottish background, not to mention her native Americanism.
Intelligent and arch, Long has selected from among her show business, ancestral, and immediate family anecdotes to create a play, “American Jade,” which relates the multi-faceted aspects of her life, career, revelations, and influences.
At New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse through June 11, “American Jade” holds attention and elicits admiration because Long’s stories are truly interesting, some bordering on fascinating, and the author-actress punctuates her tales, presented more like chapters in a neat chronological book than as an overlapping whirl, with props and mementoes from her past — a coat with gold buttons, a ‘50s-era cocktail dress, and a tape from an 1950 “Ed Sullivan Show” among them.
Only one thing is missing from Long’s elegant, eloquent piece — a play.
No matter how engaging Long’s stories are, no matter how impressively they’re worded, no matter how cogently, entertainingly, and smartly they’re presented, they never take on the structure or give the full satisfaction of being a complete work, carefully wrapped and tied in a bow.
Episodes remain separate even when characters, such as Long’s late parents, who were vaudevillians and appear on the tape from Sullivan’s show, or her mother’s second husband, whom she refers to as “uncle,” recur in spot-on, consistent imitations. Each story taken on its own or the lot savored as a whole makes for a charming, enlightening evening. Long is the one you want at your table for excellent conversation and storytelling. Yet “American Jade” lacks one important element that would seal it as being a theater piece as opposed to a lecture or a night of reminiscences.
Even as themes emerge, and one event ties back to another, such as Long knowing the number of individual tiles composing the floor of her father’s apartment house lobby, “American Jade” doesn’t coalesce beyond storytelling.
The remedy for this is seen throughout Long’s presentation.
Trained by her father to do a time step at age 4, on Broadway in a flop that contains a number that would be considered outrageously racist today by age 7, and working constantly on stage and little and big screen from her late teens to the current time, Long obviously has talent enough to acquire new work and keep audiences, and cast directors, happy.
“American Jade” needs more signs and examples of that talent. The show proves she can write and wind a good tale, but it teases Long’s show biz savvy instead of displaying it straight-out.
At various times during “American Jade,” Long will do a bar of a song or bit that aced an audition and won her a part. She’ll do a smattering of her big number from a 2002 revival of “Flower Drum Song.” She’ll do a few clicks of a tap beat. She even shows 30 seconds of impressive prowess with a tai chi sword.
This is all great. The wonder is why Long is so stingy with it. Toward the end of “American Jade,” one extended number is done. Other than that, the copied kinescope of her parents dancing and doing comedy for Ed Sullivan’s audience of 72 years past provides major razzmatazz of a kind that would benefit Long and “American Jade” immensely.
Long’s stories are great. I can hear More! More! More! of them.
The trouble is I’d rather see a few all-out production numbers and a longer demonstration of Long’s sword expertise.
“Flower Drum Song,” a show Long’s father, Larry Leung, did on Broadway in 1959 and she did 43 years later, is mentioned a lot in “American Jade.” The song “Grant Avenue” is referred to numerous times. As one point in the second act, Long breaks into “Grant Avenue” but not in an all-out effort. She seems more bent on reciting Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics than in wowing the New Hope crowd as she did when she played Madame Liang in Los Angeles and New York.
Four, maybe even three, extended musical interludes would provide “American Jade” with the glue it needs to turn a cunning, enjoyable presentation into a blockbuster.
How about three musical interludes and a sword routine? Especially while musical mastermind Yukio Tsuji is stage-right on Jack Magaw’s wonderful raised set benefited by Amanda Zieve’s excellent lighting.
A number at the end would help as well. “American Jade” seems to end abruptly. Long has finished the story she’s been telling, but somehow the show doesn’t feel as if it’s over.
Musical development, providing examples of all Long can do on a stage, would enhance Long’s stories, make “American Jade” into a more rounded show, and give the audience something extra.
Long’s stories are wide-ranging and cover a lot of history, a lot about being Asian-American in and out of the theater, a lot about personal family incidents that become universal in perspective, and a lot about having a plethora of heritages including two Asian nationalities, ties to two English-speaking nations positioned diametrically from each other on the globe, and being born, raised, and carrying a passport that says “American.”
Long moves deeply when she relates her mother’s experience being rounded up with other Japanese-Americans in Portland, Oregon, in the second year of World War II when the Japanese were placed in camps. She has a great time showing the personalities and influences of her very different parents, her mother’s second husband, and various aunts and uncles who speak in Australian or Scottish dialect.
Travel to Japan, Australia, Scotland, and other places helped Long understand her heritage. Long could have gone further and talked about being taken from Hong Kong to Mainland China by an aide of a Mike Leigh film she was making. In an interview that took place before I saw “American Jade,” Long told me that because her companion spoke Cantonese and Mandarin and they were both Asian, they were able to elude the watchful scrutiny most Western visitors to China receive.
Of course, Long speaks at length about being Asian and looking Asian and how that affected her childhood and career. Two slides that begin each half of “American Jade” hearken to a feeling of not being totally accepted by theater and media producers or in America.
For a one-person show, “American Jade” never seems static. Long is canny about moving a lot, and Eric Rosen’s direction is generally superb.
American Jade, Bucks County Playhouse, 70 South Main Street, New Hope, Pennsylvania. Through Saturday, June 11. Tuesday and Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; and Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, 2 p.m. $65 to $70. www.bcptheater.com or 215-862-2121.
