While David Henry Hwang appreciated the acclaim that came with being the first Asian-American playwright to have a show produced on Broadway, with M Butterfly in 1988, looking back, he says it put him in a difficult position.
“There are obviously great things about getting to lead some kind of breakthrough or being the first,” Hwang says. “But the downside is that there’s an impossible set of expectations that you’re then expected to carry, too. If there’s only one Asian-American or Native American playwright, it’s like that person is expected to speak for the entire community. It’s just not possible for any one individual to speak for the whole of an ethnic group, a racial group, a community, a nation… anything.”