Using Theater to Uncover Stereotypes

“Y ankee Dawg You Die.” The words are both assaultive and funny, a throwback to those old World War II movies that pitted the brave American against a demonic, pidgin-talking Japanese fighter pilot.

It’s also the title of Philip Kan Gotanda’s new play (opening Friday at the Los Angeles Theatre Center), an examination of the legacy of Asian stereotypes in American popular culture. The characters are an older Asian-American performer who’s spent much of his career playing stereotypic roles, and a younger actor who has only contempt for those who would participate in such a devaluation of their race.

“Underneath there’s anger, but it’s done in a very sharp comedic style,” explained Berkeley Repertory artistic director Sharon Ott, who mounted the work up north this spring and is restaging it here.

“It’s not a guilt-producing propagandist play,” she added during a recent interview at the Theater Center. “But certainly you’re made to think about how difficult it is to change the way people perceive cultural stereotypes. As a woman I really relate to the two characters, because I’m very aware of the way women fit into our society--and how they don’t. Although we’re not a minority, in some situations it’s just as hard for women to break through (entrenched) perceptions as it is for these two characters.”

Especially in the entertainment industry. “Sure,” the dark-haired, 38-year-old director said quickly. “Women actors have been around a long time in numbers, but what they’ve been able to portray has always been limited. They didn’t have to play dirty Japanese generals--but like that (ethnic pigeonholing), there are certain things women play . When they don’t play those roles, it’s not commercial; they’re not sympathetic. I can relate to that.”

The Pennsylvania-born Ott also feels an affinity for Asian culture: “The project that really launched my career was a play about (the flamboyant poet-suicide) Yukio Mishima, called ‘A Fierce Longing’--which won an Obie. I spent a long time in Japan researching that. Then several productions I directed for Milwaukee Rep toured to Japan. And I’ve also developed a friendship and interest in (director) Tadashi Suzuki’s work.”

Ott’s attraction to different cultures is not surprising, given the fact that she majored in anthropology at Bennington . After a while, however, life in academia wore thin. She headed West to study drama with Herbert Blau at CalArts, “but by the time I got here he’d been fired.

“So a group of us left with him and went to Oberlin College in Ohio, where we were paid to do these strange, arcane theater pieces.” Later, she hooked up with Camara Obscura, a theater company which divided its time between New York and Europe.

It was during her time in Europe that Ott began moving away from acting: “I realized that performing was not what interested me. It was putting together the material--and the people.” She returned to Los Angeles, got a job at Universal, “saved my shekels, hired all my unemployed actor friends and produced my first play at the Odyssey, an obscure Polish piece called ‘The Marriage.’ ” That led to an invitation for Ott and her cast to come to the University of Wisconsin, where she began teaching--and eventually eased into free-lance directing.

She still likes to keep a hand in it.

“I’ve been free-lancing ever since I got to be artistic director,” Ott said. “After this, I’m going down to La Jolla to do Frank Wedekind’s “Lulu,” a German expressionistic masterpiece--a wonderful, wild, difficult play. It’s good to take time off, work on my own. But I also like having a theater. What I got tired of as a free-lancer was not being able to see my place in the community: I’d just come in, do a job. There was no context to the community. I didn’t know whom I was doing the art for.

“The only reason I stay in theater--as opposed to doing television or film--is because of what it does socially. I think it’s a great thing that people gather together in public. It’s not a fantasy thing where they sit in a darkened room, go into their own mind and watch celluloid. They watch live people. The communication is live and of the moment. It can be discussed, analyzed. I find that so missing from society--and I believe in it.”

In that sense, Ott’s tenure at Berkeley Rep has been a satisfying one--though not without its difficulties. “Every other day I say, ‘ I can’t stand it! ‘ “ she said, sighing. “But then I have to think of the other employees, budgets.” Also her responsibility: selecting six plays each year for the Mainstage, plus her Parallel Season program (of which “Yankee Dawg” was a part), which is mounted at an alternative Berkeley space.

Ott credits a supportive board of directors for much of her success.

“Sure, the woman thing is an issue. We aren’t taken seriously--still. There aren’t a lot of women artistic directors. And our theater has a woman managing director, so we’re really run by two women. It’s an interesting dynamic--not necessarily problematic, but different. People respond differently to women in power. And women run things differently: more laterally; we share the responsibility. That doesn’t mean I don’t have an ego. It’s just that the ego is in another place.” A smile. “Or maybe not.”