Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Anchuli Felicia King’s admirably ambitious GOLDEN SHIELD bites off a bit more than it can chew

• By drediman
• June 14, 2022
• No Comments

This past weekend at New York City Center, Anchuli Felicia King’s play Golden Shield concluded its Off-Broadway run. The production – courtesy of Manhattan Theatre Club – tells the story of Julie Chen, a righteous American lawyer who files a class-action lawsuit against the Chinese government and a multinational technology corporation for hampering the rights of Chinese citizens and imprisoning and torturing those who breach the internet firewall that they’ve jointly erected. When Julie engages the help of her troubled younger sister Eva to serve as her translator for the case, motivations get tangled and feelings are unspared.

If there’s one thing to be said about the piece, it’s that the play is ambitious, and admirably so. In attempting to jump down multiple rabbit holes at once (e.g., an investigation of the longstanding impact of childhood trauma, a courtroom drama, a love story, a cautionary tale about the murkiness of ethics, a critique on the motivations behind technological advancement and political activism, etc.), the work – perhaps inadvertently – illustrates the notion that no single drama unfolds in a vacuum by itself. This interconnectedness is both the play’s saving grace, as well as its Achilles heel. There are synergies that occur between the play’s various facets, even if individually they’re not explored as thoroughly as I’d like them to be. Indeed, if there’s a nagging sense that the up-and-coming Thai-Australian playwright has bitten slight a bit more than she can satisfactorily chew – even with the aid of a cloying translator character, who oversees and comments on the proceedings, effectively serving as the show’s narrator – so be it. Golden Shield is a fascinating play that shines all the more brighter because of its prismatic quality.

The production has been directed by May Adrales, who does well to jump seamlessly back and forth between 2006 and 2016, the play’s two temporal points of reference. Golden Shield is a long, meaty play, and Ms. Adrales does well to bring pep and a snappy pace to her staging (as she did with her production of Vietgone, which was also presented by MTC). The cast is very good for the most part, although some of the courtroom and business scenes don’t register quite believably due to the earnestness of some of the acting. Coming off most affectingly as Eva is Ruibo Qian, whose soulful performance forms the production’s bruised, aching heart.

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GOLDEN SHIELD
Off-Broadway, Play
Manhattan Theatre Club at New York City Center
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Closed