Denise Uyehara

                                                                        Feminism

In Feminism and Theatre by Sue-Ellen Case, she suggests that feminism begins with feelings of exclusion and a growing awareness that women’s social and cultural lives and activities have been overlooked. The feminist theory and/or concept is aimed at establishing and defending equal political, economic, and social rights as well as equal opportunities for women.

The women’s “suffrage” movement began many years ago, dating back to 1848, a time when women had no right to vote.  From that era to the present day, it has still taken women many years to develop the respect that men receive in today’s society.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the term feminist and/or feminism was formed, establishing a much higher meaning for women fighting for their rights to live in an equal society. With that, feminism has influenced many forms of communication throughout America and the world, spanning from literature, music, dance, art, poetry, and even into the realm of theatre; feminism has stepped forth and produced a prominent message for all women.

Known as a radical feminist, Denise Uyehara has taken feminist drama to new lengths by entering the depths of topics such as, race, gender, sexuality, social status, religion, domestic violence, eroticism, and AIDS. Primarily derived from personal experiences and the goal of defeating stereotypes in Asian culture and American culture, Uyehara has set out to change the world one play at a time.

                                                             

Biography

            Born in Tustin, California, in 1966 to Japanese-American parents, Denise Uyehara was destined for a life in the arts. Her parents, Hajime and Joyce Uyehara, were both scientists and were active within the arts, as well as having interests in history and in the sociopolitical condition.

            Stemming naturally from the fact that both of her parents were scientists, Uyehara started with a major in biology. In 1984, Uyehara began her studies in biology at the University of California at Irvine. Later on in her undergraduate career, she decided to change her major to comparative literature, where she focused on fictional writing and playwriting. Following her switch to comparative literature, she became the editor of the Asian-American newsmagazine, as well as editor of the university’s literary journal. She was highly active and participated in experimental theatre performance, as well as traditional storytelling. In 1989, she obtained her Bachelor of Arts and moved to Los Angeles to begin a career as an Arts Administrator.

            Though she was done with college, Uyehara never stopped educating herself. She had the opportunity to work with Dom Magwili, the head of the Asian-American Theatre Project, and soon became a playwright student of the David Henry Hwang Writers’ Institute (East West Players). Alongside that, Uyehara studied playwriting more intensively at the Mark Taper Forum’s Mentor Playwright Program.

            Uyehara’s first full-length plays were Hobbies, Hiro, and Jo & Millie Go to Church, and although none of these early plays have been published, they were widely spoken about. Her solo performances and theatrical works, Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels, Maps of City & Body, and Headless Turtleneck Relatives: The Tale of Family and Grandmother’s Suicide by Fire, have been performed across the United States and internationally, becoming highly acclaimed and receiving excellent reviews.

            Despite the success of her solo performances, Uyehara was still finding it difficult to survive in society. She was battling her responsibility as an artist and she crossed paths with her frustration with her individual sexual and ethnic identity. Throughout her struggles, she made it a point to draw from stories about others and spoke to audiences of all kinds; women and men, homosexuals and heterosexuals alike, from all ethnic, political, and religious backgrounds.

            Denise Uyehara strongly believes in solidarity among artists and she consistently participates in collaborative projects. She was and remains a founding member of Sacred Nature Girls, which is a culturally diverse experimental performance troupe. The Sacred Nature Girls have explored many of life’s aspects from class, race, and sexual orientation. She worked alongside Robbie McCauley, a fellow performance artist, on The Other Weapon, an oral-history of the Black Panther party.

Uyehara is a collaborator, an artist, an educator and a friend.  As a prominent theatre practitioner, Uyehara does not take her success lightly. However, she does not let her success drive her away from what she hopes to accomplish in the theatrical world. With her diverse motivation and broad ranging talent as an actress, playwright, storyteller, and an arts administrator, she has assisted in the art of transformation within both cultures and socio-political standards.

Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels

            Hello Kitty has ascended to icon status. The mouthless Sanrio mascot represents an idyllic world of pretty flowers, narcoleptic feline sidekicks and gum-scented erasers. In a word: cute (Inoue, Metroactive).

                                                            Hello Kitty & “Cute” Japan

                        Developed in 1974, Hello Kitty has given face to many “fashionable” items from keychains to erasers, computers to toasters, and erasers to chopsticks. Primarily focusing on a demographic of young girls, the Hello Kitty brand has extended its market presence to become appealing towards an increasing number of older females. However, it must be understood that the phenomenon of Hello Kitty products is derived from the concept of kawaii in Japan, meaning “cute.” According to J. Robertson, author of Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan, kawaii was developed from the early 20^th century emergence of the shoujo, premarital female.  The author of How Hello Kitty Commodifies the Cute, Cool and Camp: Consumutopia versus Control in Japan, B. McVeigh, states that kawaii can also be defined as spectrums of interrelated dimensions such as sexual, emotional, relational, and physical, thus bringing another meaning to the “cute” status that Japan has been accorded.

            There are also seven elements that Kawaii can be derived from:

1)      Smallness

2)      Naïve/Innocence

3)       Youth

4)      Dependency

5)      Roundness

6)      Pastel colors

7)      Animal-like qualities

In Christine R. Yano’s, Kitty Litter: Japanese Cute at Home and Abroad, she suggests that a tourist in Japan may find an older woman sitting in a commuter train with a shopping bag that is decorated with the American comic strip beagle Snoopy; or see a mother and daughter, whom both have Hello Kitty paraphernalia, which may include a pink backpack for the child and/or a wallet with Hello Kitty’s mouthless face for the mother. According to Mark Schilling, “Japan… is the Country of Cute”, which furthers the notion of Japan being “cute”. However, with this “cute” status comes a difficult stereotype for the women of Japan to rid themselves of.

To assist in tearing down the stereotype of “cute” Japan and/or Asian-American, Denise Uyehara wrote her critically acclaimed one-woman show called, Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels. It was through this theatrical piece that Uyehara defined racial slurs not only towards the Asian-American, but also for other races, including Caucasians, in American society. The audience sees a woman transform from child to adult, to lesbian, to man, to someone who is fed up with how society treats one another.

                                                Hello (Sex) Kitty

Uyehara has said that ever since she was a little girl, she had wanted a Hello Kitty, but could not afford one. When the chance came, she and Hello Kitty took the “cute” Japanese stereotypes and aroused audiences of all races with her clever theatrics.  “I wanted to use Hello Kitty because it represented sweetness and a cutesy mentality. Everyone has a sweet, childlike side, its part of the beauty of each person, but we also have the mad kabuki side” (Uyehara).  

Hello (Sex) Kitty revolves around the diverse issues amongst the Asian-American culture. Uyehara states, “More about all the things attached to sex, love, self-respect, honoring each other, than about sex itself. It’s also about lust, respect, domestic violence, a woman’s right to define her own image and access to her passion. It’s about Dyke Asia and The Asian Guy” (Kurahashi, p. 336).

The theatrical piece is consistently probing the issues of human sexuality, ethnic identity, gender relations, ethnic representations, and violence between women and men.  Hello (Sex) Kitty is developed with different characters and different scenes to give the audience and/or reader an idea of what life is like for many Asian-American people, as well as other races.

The play opens with “The Asian Lesbian Standup Comic,” and it is during this scene where Uyehara begins to crack off-color jokes and also takes ethnic inventory of the audience. “The Hello Kitty Girl” is the stereotypical oriental blossom who recounts her first date with a white man who takes pictures of her while they reenact a tea ceremony. “The Asian Guy” is about an Asian guy who is bitter and is disappointed, for he cannot get laid. He speaks of this, “The Joy Fucked-Up Club” often and references his date from hell, as well as criticizes the Hollywood film industry for the negative depiction of Asian men and Asian women who date non-Asians. During this, his date begins to talk back, which creates a dynamic monstrosity between them.

It can be said that Uyehara created Hello (Sex) Kitty to create more political strife among society by bringing forth not just the issues between Asian-American people and society, but issues within society as a whole. As stated before, Uyehara takes the audience and reader on a journey through the stereotypes that are placed on Asians and explains how the stereotypes are dishonest.

                                                            The Big Head

The Big Head is a theatrical piece that was inspired by a coalition between the Arab- Americans and the Japanese-Americans. The theatrical piece is centered on hatred between the Japanese, Arabs, and the Americans. Using memory as a key component to the piece, Uyehara takes a reader and/or audience through history, starting from the past and ending in the future.  This combination of using memory and history allows for the reader and/or audience member to begin and understand the hardships that all races face within society.

Uyehara created the piece by conducting interviews with Arab-Americans and Japanese-Americans about to race, religion, and civil rights.  The theatrical piece was also thought of after the September 11 attacks on America, and the hate crimes that were directed towards Muslims and Arab-Americans in the country. In an article by Hugh Hart, Uyehara said that she realized that she “could become a conduit not just for her family history, but also for the new group of citizens who were suddenly being scrutinized with suspicion.”

             The piece opens with an unknown character who is addressing the audience directly, recalling her childhood when her hand and neighborhood apartment were burned on the same Fourth of July Holiday. However, the nature of traumatic experience has become blurred, leaving her in a state of only brief memory.

            Continuing on, Big Head also provides a more detailed look into the diversity of America and the politics that lie within coalitions. Movement, video footage, and live Super 8 film projections portray a huge role in the theatrical piece and allow for the story to have a much greater impact on the audience. Audience members are also used in the theatrical piece by portraying fourth graders reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

            One of the last scenes of the theatrical piece is a table with red clay on it. The clay is to be molded into several abstract shapes, one of which should resemble a human like figure. The figure is to be decapitated in an effort to assume that hatred among races was the cause of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

                                                            Conclusion

            Uyehara has been on a constant path of creating pieces that are about the honesty and nature of all types of taboos in American society. Her work has been critically acclaimed by such publications as the Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, and many other national and internationally acclaimed reviewers. She has an intriguing approach of taking on race, sexuality, identity, history, and many other aspects of life by placing them into reality. The reality of it all is that she takes facts and forms a theatrical piece that will not only justify its reasoning for itself as to why it has been done, but will cause a reader and/or audience member to truly think about the life he or she leads.

            Through my research on Denise Uyehara, she has said that her writing has always been centered on the Asian-American experience; however, this simply is not true. When one reads or views Uyehara’s theatrical pieces, it becomes clear that she is writing about the world as a whole. Her methodology of intercepting and intertwining societies with one another is remarkable, and the truths that are revealed within her pieces are just as beautiful as they are shocking.  Her plays are not the standard Americanized form, where one can read it without viewing it as a production. I believe that in order to fully understand and grasp the meaning or concept of what Uyehara is saying, in feminist theatre and theatre as a whole, one must read and view the full quality of the piece and allow for it to center within, meaning one should think about the concept and develop his or her own justification for what has been read and seen.

            Again, Uyehara is constantly working and striving to create theatrical pieces that tell stories about the people and she reveals the truths that she sees. Her pieces may never have a solution, but the theatrical pieces will cause the audience to ponder solutions of his or her own.

                                                            Works

Drama:

Headless Turtleneck Relatives. 1997.

Hiro: Asian American Drama. 1997.

Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on Wheels. 1998.

Maps of City & Body and Other Tales. 2001.

Unpublished Manuscripts:

Hobbies. 1989.

Jo & Millie Go to Church. 1994.

                                    Awards, Honors, and Recognitions of Excellence

• COLA Fellowship 2005-2006
• Project Grant, Arizona Commission on the Arts
• California Arts Council Touring Roster
• Asian Cultural Council Fellowship
• California Civil Liberties Public Education Project
• FundPoets & Writers' Writers on Site Residency
• AT&T:OnStage Production grant at East West Players
• Four Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Dept. "Artist-in-the-Community Grant"
• New Langton Arts/National Endowment for the Arts Grant (co-recipient)
• Brody Arts Fund Fellowship
• City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Grant (co-recipient)
• James Irvine Fellowship at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony
• James Clavell American Japanese National Literary Award
• PEN West Emerging Voices Fellowship
• "Critic's Choice", L.A. Weekly, Bay Guardian, SF Weekly
• "Best Performance of the Year" - University of Texas, Austin
• "Outstanding Cultural Event" nomination - the Lambda Awards, Philadelphia

Works Cited

Case, Sue-Ellen. Feminism and Theatre. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.

Cheng, Meiling. In Other Los Angeleses: Multicentric Performance Art.

California: University of California Press, 2002. Print.

Cheng, Meiling. “Review of Big Head.”Theatre Journal (2003): Web. 11 Mar. 2011.

Goldstein, Jeffrey, David Buckingham, Gilies Brougere. Toys, Games, and Media. Ed.

 Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2004. Print.

Hart, Hugh. “Art of Urgency.” 18 Feb. 2003. Los Angeles Times. Web. 11 Mar. 2011.

Inoue, Todd. “Take These Tea Leaves and Shove’em.” 7 Mar. 2002. Metroactive. Web.

            11 Mar. 2011.

Liu, Miles Xian. Asia American Playwrights: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Ed.

            Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002. Print.

Lee, Josephine. Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage.

            Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. Print.

Uyehara, Denise. “Denise Uyehara.” 2011. Denise Uyehara. Web. 11 Mar. 2011.

Zimmerman, Bonnie.  Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia. Ed.

New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000. Print.