Written by second-year Master of Fine Arts student Katie Đỗ, “Fancy Jungle” debuted at the Wagner New Play Festival from May 6 to May 15. While ostensibly fictionalized, the play evidently recounts the playwright’s personal experience writing for Netflix’s controversial 2022 one-season drama “Partner Track.” Đỗ uses the play’s premise and form to process a workplace rejection tinged with the unique hurt of coming from the hands of another Asian American woman.
The show opens with a job interview between its two key characters: interviewee Margo (Sabrina Liu), a young Vietnamese American playwright, and her interviewer, Lucy (Maia Nguyen), a Chinese American first-time showrunner looking to round out her writers room. Margo is invited to join the team, and the two get into the details of this pithy TV drama; Lucy calls it the chance to finally tell her own story. Within simple interview small talk, Lucy and Margo introduce the tensions within the Asian American community up for discussion across the play’s runtime.
The scope of “Fancy Jungle” certainly sets out to tackle a lot of ground. Lucy and Margo tell you the show’s guiding questions and theses outright: What does it mean to be Asian in America? Or as a character on TV? What do Asian Americans want to watch? Is authenticity achievable when you’re making media meant for everyone? And, is there any beauty at all in assimilation? Should stories be universal, as Lucy and the streamer think, or frustratingly narrow and specific, which Margo argues for? Is it realistic or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy to have your Asian female lead in a love triangle where both guys are white?
There are no definitive answers for these questions, but “Fancy Jungle” makes attempts. Halfway through, the play takes a darker turn visually, a choice that I found more limiting than expansive. Each singular absurd element is weighted with the pressure of embodying a particular argument Đỗ makes, and thus the success of that argument is conditioned upon whether or not you buy that absurd element as meaningful or valid. In that sense, I often found the play’s discourses and depth to fall prey to its own thesis: That in being generalizable, it no longer hit on anything specifically resonant.
Nevertheless, the play is a strikingly honest portrayal of what Asian Americans are — not who we were or who we want to be. Situated in active negotiation, these two foil characters demonstrate the range of Asian American ritual existence outside a white lens. “Fancy Jungle” does an excellent job as a touchpoint representation of how it feels to be and look Asian American in the contemporary moment. Though the dialogue dates itself with a few references that made this Generation Z Asian wince — the same way I think Generation Alpha Asians might hate my writing voice — Đỗ’s writing lucidly reflects her status as an Asian American woman deeply embedded in this community. She practices significant restraint in refusing to contextualize her references to non-Asians. “Partner Track” is the type of show that was so fed to Asian American and Pacific Islander audiences that I think we’re the only people who actually know about it. The titular term of fancy or jungle Asian is pulled from the pages of the Asia America dictionary, nestled under the 2016 Ali Wong special from which it was encoded. I loved how abundantly indulgent this play was in celebrating what Đỗ sees to be all our little idiosyncrasies.
But unfortunately, I found the playwright’s love of the Asian American identity to hit a noticeable ceiling when it comes to writing experiences that differ largely from her own. Considering how personal this particular true(ish) story is, I found the metatextuality of the show to activate, not mitigate, my skepticism regarding the caricaturization of these characters. While there is a real effort — especially through Nguyen’s dynamic portrayal — to give care and nuance to Lucy’s character, I couldn’t help the feeling that I, as an audience member, had more insight into Lucy than the playwright. Đỗ limits Lucy to the very real pain and hurt she presumably experienced at the hands of Lucy’s real-life inspiration. While I have endless empathy for the unique pain of marginalization by someone who should have understood you, I couldn’t shake the sense that the main function of Lucy’s character was as an object of catharsis.
The most heartbreaking moment in the play comes with a final tragic piece of dialogue: As Margo walks away, Lucy calls out, “I wish I had thought to live like you.” And while this is an arresting and powerful observation from Đỗ, there is nothing beyond this comment — no character arc or redemption for Lucy — that would cement how this vocalization impacted her life. Lucy’s voice is completely isolated from her behavior, and so even as Đỗ tries to open her up, it is not enough to convince me that she paid this character true depth, and thus, realism.
The play takes place at the heart of the contradictions within identity and representational politics, and, like its topics, varies in applying its own takeaways. “Fancy Jungle” also features a sweet — if strangely placed and uninterrogated — lesbian power-dynamic relationship, a white comedic relief character, and a first-generation Asian American immigrant writer. There are many representational issues among these other characters, too, similar to Lucy. For example, the decision to use the term “AAPI” in both advertising the play “Fancy Jungle” in real life and on stage for the show-within-a-show makes for a rather ironic potential oversight, considering the lack of Pacific Islander representation in either.
But these are imperfect characters trapped inside a play by imperfect Asian American artists navigating a deeply imperfect real world, and I believe our humanity is embedded in the willingness to take each other as we are, keep talking, and keep learning. Đỗ is doing the hard work of storytelling, of fitting as much of the nuances within the Asian American community into one show, and putting forth this effort is truly admirable. So, as I love to dally with the love-hate feelings I have about being Asian American myself, I loved this show. If the point of theater is to give you something meaningful to talk about and chew upon, then “Fancy Jungle” is a success.
