You need a minute to unpack all the messages in Tiger Style! Essentially a story about self-discovery, it’s rare this kind of journey to self-knowledge includes two people undergoing it together. But Tiger Style! seems to thrive on the unexpected as it busily sheds much needed light on a group of overlooked fellow Americans. Missing from both the big and small screens, as well as theater, the opportunity to see depictions of life from the perspective of Asian Americans is so long overdue it’s shameful. Tiger Style! helps to fill that void and does so with plenty of wit, sophistication and relatability. Packaged as comedy, its wisdom filled message comes loaded with laughter.
Written by the highly talented Mike Lew, Tiger Style! slips us into the shoes of brother-sister duo, Albert (Christopher Thomas Pow) and Jennifer (Aurora Adachi-Winter). Seen from a distance, they both look like they’ve got it made. At least mostly. Albert’s a tech head. He’s been at the same programmer/developer job for a few years now but doesn’t seem to be making any headway on the ladder up. A hard-working team player, he’s getting frustrated by the lack of recognition for his prodigious efforts. That he’s also carrying a lot of an annoying co-worker’s load doesn’t help.
As a doctor, you’d think his sister might be a little more self-actualized. But very early on we see both are hanging out in the same spectrum of miserable. Jennifer’s professional life might be on pointe, but the personal side is raggedy ride wobbly. Her live-in boyfriend, a much looser spirit who fixes stereo equipment by trade, sometimes, is leaving her. Begging him to stay doesn’t help and soon it’s just Jenni and Albert, who also lives with her, trying to figure out what happened to their lives and how to get back on track.
In Tiger Style!, especially with this brother sister team, everything is played big and every encounter gets ramped up to sensational degrees. Jennifer wails with the comedic exaggeration you’d expect from the likes of Lucille Ball. Albert’s intensity usually causes him to quake; but sometimes he’ll explode in righteous indignation. When he does it’s usually funny because Albert’s nature is the opposite of threatening. Still, seeing him attempt to give expression to his own inner tiger leads you to think he’s own the right track.
The two not only need to find a way to change their lives, they’re also looking for someone to blame for the valleys of ineptitude they find themselves in. Predictably, Mom and Dad immediately get the bullseye stamped indelibly on their backs. The play was already moving at a fast clip before the confrontation of blame with the folks. But once the showdown took place, the pace got reset to zoom. That moment-of-truth dinner with the parents in their tony San Marino home also introduced us to a couple of actors who got more and more interesting as the play progressed. Both Adachi-Winter and Pow were delivering exemplary performances as the kids in crisis, but Rammel Chan as Dad and Deanna Myers as Mom both brought a special something to their roles that glimmered with gold. They, like Garrett Lutz who played Albert’s slacker coworker-cum-boss, Russ the Bus; as well as Jennifer’s breezy boyfriend Reggie, would go on to play a slew of roles throughout the performance.
Harangued for not providing adequate life skills and lambasted for relentlessly demanding excellence, Mom and Dad weathered the attacks with gangster cool. When they got their chance to respond, they were both infinitely impressive as they set the record straight regarding why it’s necessary to apply yourself to reach success. Sidelining the point of view that posits you only get out of life as much as you put in it, these parents were coming from a different position. They knew their immigrant past and their race required a more aggressive approach to secure success in this place called America.
It’s why race starred prominently in Tiger Style! But here it carries a Chinese-American slant and the insights you learn regarding it are from the inside. Hackneyed stereotypes are not only declawed; they’re ridiculed. Usually very blithely and without the slightest hint of animus; like an old sad joke that’s so outdated it’s simply dull. That said, Tiger Style! is so rakishly sharp you’re almost tempted to believe that there really are “a network of nosy Chinese” who spy on each other in every corner of the globe.
Going to great lengths to rediscover themselves, Jennifer and Albert try anything to find the right direction. She dives into therapy which turns out not to be such a good idea for super-achievers like her. But it is a good chance to see Deanna Myers in action again, this time in the role of the therapist. So deft at sliding her lines out with pristine timing, the audience either titters or chortles every time she speaks. Bolstered as she is by Lew’s writing wit, Myers’ has the advantage of working with some darn good material. That she manages her roles with the adroitness of a Broadway veteran is the treat. Rammel Chan and Garret Lutz, who also juggled multiple roles with delightful acuity, were equally masterful.
Even after finding themselves in their familial Chinese homeland, where they thought the grass would have to be greener, their disillusionment is offset by the glimmer of something meaningful and positive. But where will it lead? We eventually find out with laughter lighting the way. It’s stories like Tiger Style! that return electricity and discovery to theater. This one also reminds us of the depth of acting talent Chicago enjoys.
Tiger Style!
Through October 30, 2022
The Writers Theatre
325 Tudor Court
Glencoe, IL 60022