By Gretchen C. Van Benthuysen
Jodi Long, who spent summers in Bradley Beach as a child, sure has an interesting family story to tell in her new play “Surfing My DNA” playing at the New Jersey Repertory Theater through May 26.
An accomplished actress, she’s turned her vaudevillian parents’ real and remembered experiences – as well as those from her own life – into a funny, intriguing, enjoyable two-hour play with music, dancing and, of course, tap shoes.
But make no mistake, being Asian in America in the 20th century was never easy and trying to make a living in the theater before nontraditional casting meant jobs only in revivals of “The King and I” and “Flower Drum Song,” for which Long won an Ovation Award for Featured Actress in a Musical in 2002.
There are times her story may bring you to tears. There also are laugh-out- loud moments.
Long made her Broadway debut at age 7 in “Nowhere To Go But Up,” which she tells us had no place to go but down. It closed within a week. She appeared in four more Broadway shows, plus numerous movies and TV shows (Margaret Cho’s mother in “All American Girl”), and wrote and co-produced “Long Story Short,” a documentary about her vaudevillian parents.
“Surfing My DNA” is her one-person stage incarnation of life with her parents, nightclub performers who toured their song-and-dance act on the “Chop Suey Circuit” in the 1930s and ‘40s. They even landed a spot on “The Ed Sullivan Show” (1950) where he introduced their act as “direct from China.”
Except they weren’t from China. They’d never been to China. They didn’t even speak Chinese. Her father Larry Long – billed as the Chinese Gene Kelly – was born in Australia to a Cantonese father and Scottish mother. Long’s mother Trudy was born in Oregon to parents of Japanese heritage and the family spent World War II in an interment camp.
There’s a lot that Long covers here using props, adjusting her voice, her stance, to distinguish when she its playing her mother, father, boyfriend, stepfather, etc. as her story unfolds. (Imitating her Cantonese-Australian relatives’ Aussie accent is hysterical).
But other times, the story is hard to follow. Was she talking about herself, or her mother at a young age? Her mother’s brothers, or her brothers?
Perhaps there is too much information to absorb in this two-hour play with music composed and played live by Yukio Tsuji on a shakuhachi (end- blown bamboo-flute) and percussion instruments that gently enhance the many scenes.
The sparse set by Jessica Parks gives Long plenty of room to move. The design includes projections on the upstage wall – images akin to a home slideshow from the 1950s – including the ocean in Bradley Beach where Long’s mother’s boyfriend taught her to bodysurf.
Projected super titles would help clarify Long’s family’s journey in this worthwhile play directed by Eric Rosen.
“Surfing My DNA” is performed Thursdays though Sundays through May 26. For tickets, $30- $50, call 732-229-3166 or visit njrep.org. New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Branch.
