Soft Power is a musical within a play written by David Henry Hwang after a traumatic experience (or rather two related ones). He is actually a character in this semi-autobiographical piece. It is a satire, an inverted retelling of The King and I set in 2016 America, a strange and tumultuous land. Hillary Clinton plays the inverted would-be king, and Xing Xue is a Chinese expat who plays "I", the protagonist in a yellow savior love story (would love for Hillary to see this). It is so much funnier than I expected. And the music and choreography are actually pretty good. Hwang turns his anger into an intelligent story about Chinese and American culture. It is full of sharp observations about us. Some of the punch lines hurt a little considering we're still in the mess of 2016 but that only makes the themes more relevant. I don't know how the production has changed since the middling reviews from its premiere in California but I thoroughly enjoyed the show. The predominantly Asian cast is delightful.
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