At the same time, the whimsy in this 2017 work by the widely produced Yee, as winningly staged by director Jennifer Chang, muses touchingly on identity, family and heritage. Tanya Orellana’s ebullient set places the heritage theme front and center: Beneath dangling Chinese lanterns stands the aforementioned door — actually, double doors, aged and weathered red, their style suggesting vintage Chinese architecture.
This scene represents a club in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where — a metatheatrical hall of mirrors here — a dramatist named Lauren Yee (Ashley D. Nguyen) is rehearsing a new play about her father, Larry Yee. When Larry himself (Grant Chang) barges in, derailing the rehearsal and introducing a lion dance that Lauren hasn’t scripted, she’s exasperated. But when he goes missing, she searches desperately for him through a phantasmagoric Chinatown, her quest recalling “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “The Phantom Tollbooth” but with “Miss Saigon” jokes and fortune cookies falling from the sky.
While infusing warmth into break-the-fourth-wall moments — we’re treated as the audience at the play-within-the play — the cast aces the show’s comedy, including slapstick and wisecracks about showbiz. In well-calibrated straight-man mode, Nguyen’s Lauren radiates nerdy anxiety, while Chang works vulnerability into Larry’s expansive good humor. The other three actors seem to have a blast as they role-juggle. Jacob Yeh is particularly hilarious as a swaggering gangster named Shrimp Boy, and Sylvia Kwan ably channels oddballs such as a surly liquor store owner. Nicholas Yenson is a riot as Model Ancestor, a Yee family ancestor whose mincing 21st-century mannerisms belie his antique garb. (Helen Q. Huang designed the witty costumes.)
Much humor stems from Jennifer Chang’s direction, be it the lights that flicker ominously when Shrimp Boy’s name is mentioned or the giddily over-the-top style of that FBI scene. It’s an irresistible more-is-more aesthetic, which has room for Lauren and the colorful lion-dance creature to pas-de-deux with both traditional lion-dance moves and soft-shoe. (Chua Martial Arts provided lion-dance coaching.)
Amid the delectable zaniness, the director, Nguyen and especially Grant Chang find the emotional charge in the father-daughter relationship, which recalls family bonds in Yee’s plays “The Great Leap” and “Cambodian Rock Band” (seen locally at Round House Theatre and Arena Stage, respectively). The parent-child motif here entwines with the themes of community, heritage and alienation — the anxiety and responsibility that come with both belonging and not belonging.
“All you gotta do is call on the ancestors to help these doors open up,” Larry assures Lauren at one point. Fortunately for us, the process turns out to be much more complicated.
King of the Yees, by Lauren Yee. Directed by Jennifer Chang; assistant director, Gregory Keng Strasser; lighting design, Minjoo Kim; sound design and original music, Matthew M. Nielson; fight choreography, Casey Kaleba. About 2 hours. $40-$93. Through Oct. 22 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. 703-820-9771. sigtheatre.org.
