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“Tiger Style!” is a bright, loud, fast and fun ride that’s often over the top — after all, even the play’s mock-ferocious title has an exclamation point. But Mike Lew’s lively comedy is more subtle at its heart, championing the complexities of reality over the ease of perception, usually at moments you least expect it.
TheatreWorks is presenting “Tiger Style!” through April 28 at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts.
TheatreWorks Associate Producer of Casting and Literary Management Jeffrey Lo directs the show, which boasts split-second comic timing throughout and often plays like a farce. The five-person ensemble cast plays well off each other, with all but the two central characters performing multiple roles.
Jenny Nguyen Nelson and Will Dao play Jennifer and Albert Chen, a pair of 30-something Chinese American siblings who find themselves at relationship and career dead ends, respectively. Nguyen Nelson and Dao bring a fun, slightly bratty energy to the sister and brother duo, capturing a sibling relationship that’s supportive and of course a little antagonistic, too.
Jennifer is a doctor who graduated from Harvard in just three years and Albert is a software engineer. They share an apartment in Irvine, which is also home to Jennifer’s freeloading boyfriend, Reggie (Jeremy Kahn).
Jennifer pays his rent and bills and tries to be accommodating no matter his quirks and hobbies, but Reggie, who’s white, breaks up with her, complaining that she doesn’t live up to his expectations of an “exotic” and “submissive” girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Albert faces his own leech at the office: Russ the Bus (also Kahn), a gregarious but lazy colleague who takes advantage of Albert’s coding skills and team spirit. Russ coasts on Albert’s work and goodwill all the way to a promotion — over Albert. Their boss, Melvin (Francis Jue), who is also of Asian descent, seems to want to avoid accusations of favoritism and claims that Albert isn’t suited for the role because he’s “not a leader.”
Stymied by a society that’s not as accepting as they believe they were promised by their parents, who emphasized education and hard work as equalizing forces, the siblings’ frustration boils over. They turn their rage on the strict, achievement-focused “tiger parenting” of their upbringing. But confronting their parents doesn’t provide the expected catharsis.
From overthinking, overachieving main characters to casually racist lovers and co-workers, “Tiger Style!” lampoons stereotypes of all kinds, inflating them into ever bigger comic caricatures at times. The show takes a swipe at the stereotype of “tiger parenting” too, but in a way that reveals its most grounded characters: Mom and Dad (Emily Kuroda and Francis Jue).
The visit to Mom and Dad’s house marks a momentary shift in the otherwise chaotic tone generally set by their offspring.
Kuroda and Jue’s performances bring warmth and firm kindness to Mom and Dad, who are not only unperturbed by their children’s accusations but also react in a way that’s somehow both dismissive and loving. They neither downplay the realities of racism in America nor accept their children’s blame for their style of parenting, informing their adult kids that they’re on their own when it comes to finding fulfillment.
Further frustrated by the encounter with their parents, Jennifer and Albert decide to go to China, where they can find the lives they’ve been searching for. The play’s second act is set in China, where Jennifer and Albert discover that their American attitudes make it more difficult to fit in than they’d hoped.
They also find themselves caught in similar patterns as in Irvine, which become much stickier situations, given they don’t know the language or cultural customs. The sense of “wherever you go, there you are” is underscored by the casting, particularly several roles that demonstrate Jennifer and Albert can’t escape their bigger issues. Kuroda plays both an American therapist and a Chinese matchmaker whose methods don’t meet Jennifer’s expectations while Jue plays a pair of rigid bosses, Melvin in the U.S. and General Tso (as in the chicken dish) in China, who place untenable demands on Albert.
The second act has its comic moments but doesn’t feel as tight as the first act. Some scenes go on a little too long and there are times when the sheer speed of the dialogue muddies a few words and steps on a few jokes.
The production draws on a palette of bright, saturated colors in Arnel Sancianco’s sets, Becky Bodurtha’s costumes and Kurt Landisman’s lighting, which becomes particularly pronounced when the setting moves to China.
Sancianco’s clever set design uses small individual modules that represent work, home and other spaces — each labeled neatly as such, giving a sense of compartments or checkboxes.
Surprisingly, it’s a scene set in a place that’s big on compartments and not known for nuance that brings a twist and suggests our two protagonists may find their way after all. Here, Jennifer and Albert discover a new idea, but one that’s been lurking the whole time throughout this big broad comedy: simply that the “truth is more complicated.”
“Tiger Style!” runs through April 28 at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Tickets are $27-$100. theatreworks.org.