By Angela Kang
This article originally appeared in
Asia Pacific Arts. (http: //www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/071803/20030718_dip_angelakang.html)
Angela Kang's first full-length play, "When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes," playing in The Victory Theatre until July 20th, has been praised for its uniquely magical storyline. Combining the traditional with the contemporary, Angela Kang, a writer, producer, and actress from Orange County, has created a realm far from that in the ordinary Korean folktale. Characters such as the cunning tiger and patriarchal Deity spin a tale of her own. She has wittily brought to life ancient values and tradition intertwined with present-day issues to allow all demographic audiences to relate to and to enjoy.
Click here (http: //www.asiaarts.ucla.edu/071803/kang.ram) to watch the RealVideo interview.
Interview with Angela Kang
July 9, 2003
Interviewed by Lynna Kim
Transcribed by Angie Kang
Lynna: Can you tell us who you are, what you do, and how you came into the business?
Angela: I came into writing because it's something I always used to do as a kid; I always kept a journal of things that I would write as long as I can remember. I didn't start writing plays until a little bit later when I was in high school, when I was a senior. I adapted a short story by Ron Dahl called "Lamb to the Slaughter." I think there was a film with the same name. But I adapted that as a little play and so that was my first attempt to really write a play. Then in college, I wrote a bunch of stuff that was produced during different festivals. But "When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes" was my first full-length play that's been produced. In between, I've written some stuff for some performance arts pieces.
Lynna: Can you tell us a little bit about "When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes" and how you came up with that interesting title?
Angela: Sure, I started writing "When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes" when I was taking a workship at the David Henry Hwang Institute that the East West Players has. I just wanted to do that workshop because it helps me to write. If I have some structure and deadlines, it just gets me motivated to produce pages. It was my first attempt to write something that was really, in terms of a theater piece, something that specifically had to do with something Asian or Asian American. I actually wanted to write a play about orphans who had been separated from North Korea and kind of delve into political issues around that. But, I was making it as a modernization of the myth of how the sun and moon came to be in Korean mythology. As I was looking at that myth, I kind of created an adaptation of it and decided to just continue adapting other Korean folktales because I'm interested in mythology. The title comes from a saying in Korean, which is a traditional saying that is equivalent to saying, "Once upon a time." But it's just like saying, "A long, long time ago," basically. I just thought it was an interesting idea.
Lynna: So when people watch that play, is it apparent to them that it's based on the saying, "Once upon a time"?
Angela: I don't know. It's not anywhere in the play; it doesn't ever say that that's where it comes from. I think it might be in the program as a program note - it's been mentioned in some of the press. I kind of incorporated it into one of the five stories that make up the play, where there's a character of a tiger and I decided that one of his characteristics would be that he smoked a pipe because all the animals have human qualities in this play. Then I kind of ended it. The tale is about the beginnings of Korea, like who became the first Korean monarch, this kind of godly lineage to the king, but also about the nature of a bear that hibernates and a tiger that always roams around. So I kind of incorporated that as part of the character, although it wasn't part of the original tale.
Lynna: These days, there's a lot of emphasis on action-packed movies and film. So how do you think your play, based on Korean folktales, will compete and survive among those mainstream films?
Angela: I don't know because I guess it's almost like a separate thing from that. I don't think it can compete against an action-packed film in the same way because it's not the same genre. Obviously, when you do a play, you have many more budget limitations and what you can do with physics in life, as opposed to special effects and film. I think that I use a sort of form of story telling narrative in this, which is typical with story theater or narrative theater, where a lot of the lines are narrated. I think it goes back to the oldest form of what it meant to create theater with someone telling a story. So I think that that, although it may not have like that kind of MTV, fast-paced crazy thing, has an appeal in its timelessness. I guess that's my best answer.
Lynna: Do you think it's important for the mass audience to be more aware, through these Korean folktales, of Asian culture?
Angela: Is it important? It'd be nice. I don't know how to exactly answer that. I think I wrote this with the idea that hopefully, a mass audience would come and enjoy it. But at the same time, I didn't want to preach out, "Hey! These are Korean folktales and you need to know them to be a modern, multi-cultural sensitive person." But I do think that there's value with just becoming familiar with the traditions of other cultures because you'll see that there's so many universal themes that run through all folktales, and that's one of the things that is so appealing to me. Although they're specific and they definitely have their differences and the values of whatever culture are communicated through those tales, there are also these deeper human emotions and needs that are communicated as well. And that's appealing to me.
Lynna: Do you think that the audience needs a foundation of where these folktales derived from and what they mean to understand your play?
Angela: I don't think so. I think the tales are very accessible, in a way. That's not to say that they're simplistic. One of the tales - the one with the most struggles and I don't think that it's always entirely successful - was the fourth tale in the whole series, which is sort of this whole epic story in itself. It's got all these insane things that happen and it's got mixtures of the original tale, such as Buddhist, Christian, Chinese, and Korean influences. It's just a mish-mash of all these different things. It's really complex, but then there's also elements of these tales that are really familiar and feel like almost like a grim tale or Hans Christian Andersen tale, you know, things that are familiar. And also, the way that I've adapted them, because my own sense of sensibility is so mixed, it's very contemporary; it's not something that's high above where nobody can understand because that's not really the point of this particular piece.
Lynna: So did you fuse the old traditional folktales with some new contemporary style? How did you fuse those two together to make them fit the story?
Angela: I think it's just a matter of feeling it out for each particular story. I have a lot of interest in and respect for elements of ritual or just beautiful traditional forms on stage because they're neat. In this piece, there's some traditional Korean fan dancing and drumming. There are these beautiful costumes that are traditional in form, but contemporary in spirit because they have these crazy wigs and fabrics that aren't always necessarily traditional. And for the language of the play, I think because I was a person raised in the States and a part of this society as it is, I think it's just natural to write the way that I see the world, which is a contemporary feel. But at parts where I thought were more serious, I tried to preserve this element of rituals or seriousness to it.
Lynna: So how do you view the world? I know you use kind of grim themes of adversity and death. Does that come from your own personal values and beliefs?
Angela: I guess I view the world optimistically, overall. I think that people are essentially good, but I also think that there are a lot of terrible, dark, horrible things that happen in the world, as well. And those things also interest me. I have an obsession with reading about serial killers, and it's horrible. I always feel weird saying that because I feel like I'm a scary person for saying that. But it's more that I'm interested in understanding the psychology of what drives dark behavior or I try to understand more about humanity through the worst examples of humanity. And also, in my own personal life, there's been a lot of death. My mother died when I was in high school and so I think that, for a long time, shaped a lot of the themes that I was interested in. It still does. I also lost my grandfather, who had also lived with me my whole life, around that same time. Also, my grandmother, who was my mother's mother, died. So I think that it kind of came at a time in my life when I was starting to be more interested in writing things. For a long time, through writing, I was working out these issues of life, death and what are the things that last? So I guess that's where a lot of that comes from.
Lynna: Do you have a particular stance on feminism and patriarchy? It seems like your views show in the play.
Angela: Yes, I think it's interesting. A lot of the press mentioned the feminist slant to my play. I would say that I'm definitely a feminist and I really believe in women being strong, women having equal rights, not as a thing of women are superior to men. But we're all people and people should be judged on their own merits, rather than on the basis of their gender, or of course on anything else, like their race, nationality or sexual preference. Because these tales come from a culture which essentially has at its core these sort of patriarchal values, I found that there were times when I was craving for the female characters to be stronger, or outwardly stronger. I think that probably in my adaptation, they're a little feistier than they might have been in the original versions. Or at least in their original versions, I think that it's almost a blank as far as what the women were feeling or going through. It was always seen through the lens of the male character a lot of times. So I think that that does come out. There are times when I read a draft and I go, you know, even in my trying to do this, I fall into the trap of unwittingly repeating these sort of patriarchal values. So I think I was aware of trying to strip anything from the play that I thought was overtly sexist or where the women weren't as strong. But some of the female characters were very silly, but their male counterparts were also very silly. So there's like an equality in it that way.
Lynna: I know it's inherent in the Asian culture to have submissive women. Have you experienced anything personal that has made you become more of a feminist?
Angela: I don't know. I don't think I've really run into too much overt sexism where people were purposely, and in a mean spirited way, being sexist. But I often notice when there is underlying sexism to situations or to the way people treat other people. And I'm just very aware of that. Even as a child, it's something I became aware of and it was something that I thought was not right. So, I don't know that it ever came from any particular experience. It's just always been something that interested me. It's part of the reason I went to the college that I went to, which was Occidental College. It's consistently ranked as one of the most diverse colleges in the country. It tends to be slanted a little bit left wing, probably a lot left wing as the conservative students would say. But that's part of who I am and part of my worldview.
Lynna: You used non-Asian actors in your play. Is there a particular reason why you chose to do that?
Angela: For this particular play, the idea was actually brought up by Lodestone Theater Ensemble, which is one of the producing organizations. I'm actually a part of Orphans Theater Ensemble, which is one of the companies that is collaborating, and that company is primarily non-Asian - there's me and one other Asian girl. But, at Lodestone, which up until now has only worked with Asian actors in their productions, the artistic directors brought the up idea and asked me if I would be open to casting non-Asians in this role to really make it diverse in the way it's cast. This really plays up the universal aspect of the tales. Up to that point, I hadn't really thought about it. Like I said, I don't usually write things that are specifically Asian American oriented. So I always thought, well, I'm writing this play so of course it's going to be performed by Asian American people because there's all this stuff about how there aren't enough roles to go around. But now I think it's really starting to get to a time, at least in theater, when I don't necessarily think that it's true. I've never really run into situations where people said, "No, we won't consider casting you because you're Asian." And if they were like that, they're not the type of people I would want to work with. I think it's a little bit different in film and in TV where there's more trouble. So I felt good about the decision to use the mixed cast because I think that for me, of course ideally, I would like to see a world where you can see anybody playing any role as long as they are good for the role, not depending on their racial background or whatever. I think it worked really well. It let a mixed group of folks get together and work on things. Even within the cast of the Asian actors, there's only one actor who's half-Korean and the rest come from other Asian backgrounds. So it really was, for everybody, a learning experience.
Lynna: I know that ".When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes" is ending July 20th. Do you have any new ventures in the works?
Angela: I am working on a very short, one-act holiday play that will be at the Company of Angels Theater opening in November, I think. And then there are other writing projects that I'm working on. I have a few things that I submitted places, but we'll see if anything comes of those things. And with a friend of mine, we wrote a performance piece based on the works of the playwright, Charles Mee. He's actually great, he's one of my favorite playwrights. He writes a lot from ancient sources, like mythology, but then collages these plays together using these old sources and also trash pop culture and all these different things into this beautiful poetic form. But he also encourages people to do the same with his work so he puts all his stuff out there on his website and says, "Any of my plays that I have written that I have the rights to, you're welcome to use those pieces and make your own play." I think it's really great and a revolutionary thing to do because people tend to be really protective of their work and he just puts it out there. So we created a little performance piece based off of that, but we want to expand it eventually. So that's something we will hopefully do. At the time, we called it, "Love Mee." We did a performance marathon for a fundraiser that does a twenty-four hour marathon of all kinds of performances, like music acts and short plays and all kinds of things. So that was a lot of fun for us to do. Those are the things that are on the horizon that I know of. I know that there will be other things.
Lynna: Is it becoming a new trend in theater to collage things together?
Angela: It's definitely not particular to him. That's the way I work with some of my other plays. And I think that Dadaists used to do something similar to that, kind of taking found pieces of things and slapping it all together. I think that there's a bit of a resurgence of this way of working right now. It's still not fully mainstream, but it's definitely a thing that people do and it's a way of working that interests me personally. It's interesting for me to draw upon these things that have already been created and then create something new out of that.
Lynna: Wonderful, thank you so much.
Angela: Thank you.