Perhaps this has happened to you before. You’ve said something that someone misunderstood – with or without a translator. Due to culture, language, or even gender, a statement like “I appreciate your frankness” comes across as “I enjoy your rudeness.” The new play, “Chinglish” pays tribute to, and pokes fun at, these moments when something gets lost in translation. The play is in both Mandarin and English. And because the show has subtitles similar to those at the opera, the audience is fully in on all the jokes, even when the mono-lingual characters are not. David Henry Hwang is the mastermind behind this new comedy, which follows an American to China as he tries to set up business there. He’s also the Tony-winning playwright who brought us “M. Butterfly” and “Yellow Face.”
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