King of the Yees, the newest work from Signature resident playwright Lauren Yee, begins with a play within a play: meeting the characters, playwright Lauren (Maureen Sebastian) and father Larry (David Shih); then meeting their real-life counterparts, playwright Lauren (Kelly Marie Tran, wonderful) and father Larry (the incomparable Francis Jue)—who of course are also playing real-life versions of Yee and her father. Got it?
The metatheatrical moment is a surprisingly clunky start from the otherwise reliable Yee, who usually plunges her audiences right into the action, whether it’s for laughs (Mother Russia) or punches to the gut (Cambodian Rock Band). The loosely autobiographical King of the Yees—“a lot of this is true. but a lot of it is only kind of true,” reads the author’s note atop the script—clearly lands in the comedy category, but the story takes some time to get going. Nearly the entire first act.
Jue gets a good entrance, cellphone to ear, oblivious to the world. “Dee, I can’t talk right now. I’m in Lauren’s play. LAUREN’S PLAY!… How is it? Eh, you know.” There is some necessary exposition: identifying the setting, San Francisco’s Chinatown, in front of the Yee Fung Toy Family Association, a men’s club that Lauren describes as “obsolescent”; discovering that the large, imposing red double doors block evil spirits (“Like a welcome mat! In reverse!” says Larry).
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★★☆ review here.]
The action, and plot, begin in earnest at the start of Act 2, when Lauren embarks on an absurdly comic quest to find Larry, who mysteriously has gone missing following the arrest of his longtime candidate, secretary of state candidate Leland Yee. (Side note: Yee is a real former state senator, who would go on to serve five years in prison.) Along the way, she meets all types of characters/caricatures including Chinese gang leader Shrimp Boy (Shih). Of course, Shrimp Boy gets her into a gun fight—cue the action sequence, an incredible slo-mo parody of the stunt-filled kung-fu movies that Hollywood loves to appropriate. (Side note No. 2: Shrimp Boy is also real; in 2016, he was sentenced to two life terms on charges of murder and racketeering.)
The chiropractor “with the weird beard” (Jon Norman Schneider) heals her bumps and bruises, rewards her with the ability to speak Chinese, and instructs her to bribe the Lum Elders (Schneider, Sebastian, and Shih) with fortune cookies. After promising to get their grandkids into the University of California—UCLA, UC–Berkeley, UC-Irvine (“That’s the Asian one”), any of them—Yee gets a “bai”: She must track down the strongest whiskey, the sweetest oranges, and the loudest firecrackers in Chinatown. All for free. And all before sunset.
More wackiness ensues! She proves she can haggle over a bottle of whiskey, and then she gets the Lion Dance to spit up a bag of oranges—but only after engaging him, and oddly, the whiskey seller (Sebastian), in a crazy-fun dance battle that references, among other iconic routines, “All That Jazz” and “Single Ladies.” And she wins the loudest firecrackers from the Sichuan Face Changer—an effect that must be seen to be believed—by solving a riddle. Oh, but her adventure isn’t over yet. She still needs to meet Model Ancestor (Schneider), who saved the Yees from slaughter by bringing them to southern China hundreds of years ago. Would you believe he’s actually a model?
Act 2 moves like a freight train, but director Joshua Kahan Brody doesn’t let things get out of control. And he slows the pace beautifully at the end for Lauren’s grace note of a speech, when she tells us, among other things, that “The story I wrote, this play, was not about the end, but the beginning.”
King of the Yees opened Oct. 19, 2026, at the Pershing Square Signature Center and runs through Nov. 15. Tickets and information: signaturetheatre.org
