East Meets West on Stage : Theater: Chinese Story Theater hopes to fill a void in San Diego.

The furor over the casting in “Miss Saigon,” the London mega-spectacular that opened on Broadway Thursday seems, in retrospect, less a question of whether Caucasian Jonathan Pryce was right for the role of a Eurasian pimp (the critics are giving him raves), than a question of why there aren’t more roles for Asian actors in American theater.

But Broadway’s voids are only reflections of black holes closer to home. Other than “Tea,” Velina Hasu Houston’s play about Japanese war brides, which appeared at the Old Globe Theatre in 1988, there hasn’t been much in the way of Asian roles or subjects in San Diego either.

Maya Hu thinks the time is right to introduce what she calls Chinese Story Theater to San Diego. The staging of “Monkey King: The Journey Begins!”--a fanciful but fact-based folk tale--is part of that effort. The multiculturally-cast play opened Monday for schoolchildren and will be performed for the general public in four performances this weekend at the Lyceum Space in Horton Plaza.

“We want to promote the Chinese culture,” said Hu, the executive director of the San Diego Chinese Center, which for 20 years has primarily been a social-service organization. “There’s no other organization doing such service. And we want the general public to know about us.”

That is also why the 28-year-old Taiwanese-born director changed the name of the organization from the Chinese Social Service Center in 1989 to the San Diego Chinese Center.

In the last decade, San Diego County’s Chinese population has grown to about 40,000 to 50,000, Hu pointed out in an interview last week at The Island, the San Diego Repertory Theatre’s downtown rehearsal hall where the director, composer and cast were gathering. And the needs of the Chinese population have changed over the years, she said.

The thrust of the center remains social services--which include offering senior citizens and new immigrants a place to gather, as well as help in making the transition to the West easier for people who don’t speak English. But, as the community is changing, and many of the immigrants are looking for cultural enrichment and exchange, too, as a means of affirming their heritage, Hu is trying to expand the role of the organization to provide awareness of the Chinese culture both for the Chinese in San Diego and for the larger community as well.

Part of the reason for the expansion is practical.

“The funding for social services is really hard to get,” Hu said. “And we wanted to continue to serve the community. This is a way to exist and subsidize social services.”

Hu joined the organization in 1989, got the idea of introducing Chinese Story Theater from Kent Brisby and Gingerlily Lowe, a husband-and-wife team who were involved in San Diego’s only other attempt at Asian theater, the Pacific Asian Actors’ Ensemble. The ensemble, long since disbanded, produced shows at the Marquis Public Theatre from 1980-1982.

Brisby adapted “Monkey King” from Wu Cheng An’s 16th-Century novel, “Journey to the West.” “Monkey King” is about a monk who travels from China to India to bring back Buddhism to his country. Helping the monk is a character called “Monkey King,” a fearless, trouble-making and mischievous monkey who Brisby and Lowe say is as famous in the far East as Mickey Mouse is in the West.

From the beginning, Brisby and Lowe said, they have wanted to produce American-Asian theater rather than Asian theater, and to reach American and not just Asian audiences in the process.

Brisby, 35, was born in Omaha, Neb., but learned to love Asian theater during the years he spent with his parents in Micronesia in the 1960s, where they taught school. Lowe, 30, who was raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown, grew up with orally told stories like “Monkey King” and “White Snake,” the first San Diego Chinese Center production that Brisby and Lowe launched with Hu. That was last June; the three had met in 1989 when they all worked together to plan the Chinese New Year celebration at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

The original ensemble had some of the same goals Hu is promoting today: “The goal for that organization (the ensemble) was to do community outreach and to allow Asian actors to do other roles than the laundry worker or the maid,” Lowe said. “We did some children’s theater, and one of the projects we always wanted to do was ‘Monkey King.’ But it was such a huge story that it was impossible.”

Brisby and Lowe did such shows as David Henry Hwang’s “FOB,” which stands for “Fresh Off the Boat.” Years later, Hwang became famous for “M. Butterfly” which won the Tony for Best Play on Broadway in 1987. But Brisby and Lowe said they remember him from back then as just another aspiring Asian artist who enjoyed the small, non-Equity production and went out to Filippi’s for a pizza with the couple after the show.

And now, nearly a decade later, through their association with the San Diego Chinese Center, their own goals for larger productions are being realized.

The Chinese Center produced “White Snake” with the help of a $4,328 grant from the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture.

As with “Monkey King,” Brisby wrote and directed the script, Lowe performed in it, and Cecilia Bao, a onetime Resident Composer at the Beijing Dance College, who now lives in Poway, composed original music.

“White Snake” sold out its three scheduled performances at the Lyceum Space, at 250 seats a show, paying back expenses and leaving the organization with a surplus. The company also performed 19 shows at eight schools, reaching 5,000 children. The prospects for the “Monkey King” also look promising.

All of the school performances have sold out. Tickets still remain for the weekend shows.

This year, thanks to a $9,200 grant from the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture Independent Projects program, Hu, Brisby and Lowe felt they could afford the “Monkey King’s” $28,500 budget. Smaller grants have come in from Southern California Edison, the San Diego Chinese Women’s Assn., the Horton Plaza Theatre Foundation and the San Diego Repertory Theatre.

But the reception to this show may make all the difference in determining whether there will be a third annual Chinese Story Theater presentation.

“The success of this show will determine whether they’ll give us funding next year or not,” Hu said. “That is why we have to do everything we can to reach the people. All the people.”

* Performances of “The Monkey King” will be open to the public at 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, with matinees at 2 Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $5 for children, seniors and military personnel, and $10 for adults. At 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, 234-4447.