Shades of Culture and Dim Sum

The Event: The Thursday night opening at the Doolittle Theatre of “The Woman Warrior,” adapted from the novels of Maxine Hong Kingston by playwright Deborah Rogin. The play is nominally the story of a young girl’s coming of age among her Chinese family’s ghosts and stories, but it’s also an historical epic, told in intimate terms. A party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel followed.

Who Was There: Producer Martin Rosen and producing director Gordon Davidson were joined by a long list of celebrities, including George Takei, Lauren Tom, Lisa Lu, Margaret Cho, Rene Auberjonois, Dyan Cannon, Bonnie Franklin, Estelle Getty and Joan Van Ark.

Talk About a Development Deal: “We started this project more than 10 years ago,” said Davidson, who looked fetching in a gray double-breasted suit and Miro print tie. “It became clear that it was too big for one theater. We got the right writer, and developed a pool of actors who finally could articulate it. Sometimes things have to gestate. It aged like good wine.”

Multiculturalism: Director Sharon Ott said, “There are different plays within the play. There’s a little bit of Brecht, a little of Shakespeare’s histories, some American musical comedy, and Chinese opera.” The cast includes actors trained in all these traditions and more. The only person who seemed to be suffering from culture shock was Liana Pai, who plays the central character--the daughter. Pai grew up in New York and finds herself in Hollywood for the first time.

Never Put Your Daughter on the Stage: In the play, the father carves a list of the family’s enemies into the daughter’s back. Will this be a hard role for Pai’s Asian American parents to watch their daughter play? “For a while they didn’t understand what I was doing,” Pai said of her early acting career. “Then they saw me play Electra, and they said, ‘Oh my God, this is what you should be doing.’ ”

Chow: The Roosevelt provided a selection of dim sum and fresh fruit, though the most prominent and popular offering was the black coffee, which made sense given that the play ran until 11 p.m. Serendipitous advice was offered in the play’s first act, when the mother tells her children, “Food that tastes good is bad for you, and food that tastes bad is good for you.”

Best Party Moment: Actor Luo Yong Wang, who began studying at the Beijing Opera School at the age of 8, and actress Kim Miyori, who comes from the Broadway tradition of Stephen Sondheim, began to spar playfully, and soon were hamming it up like a couple of sideshow acrobats. Miyori’s patent leather shoes went flying when she hopped up on Wang’s shoulders and made like a comical swan.