In 1834, when she was 14 years old, Afong Moy sailed from China to New York City and became the first Chinese woman to set foot in America. Promoters brought there, officially anyhow, as a liaison to bridge the gap between East and West.
She toured the country and was famous until she wasn’t. Eventually the same crowds that watched her eat with chopsticks and walk across the floor in the unnatural motion caused by her bound feet, moved on to other exotica. In time, she ended up with P.T. Barnum’s circus before she disappeared into history.
In The Chinese Lady about to open at Stages theater, acclaimed playwright Lloyd Suh tells Moy’s story. Without any sort of diary or journal ever kept by Moy, most of the accounts of her extraordinary life came in the form of newspaper clippings.
Which of course, gives a modern-day playwright considerable leeway to build his own account of her. And to give her voice and not just a disappearance into history.
Alexandra Szeto-Joe (The Heart Seller, another Lloyd Suh work) plays Moy who is accompanied throughout by Atung, her translator played by Lloyd Wayne Taylor. Sarah Shin directs the one-act play running 90 minutes.
“There were Chinese men at that point who were working in merchant trading and mining trades. The men were more common. Chinese women were very elusive to the Western gaze and the Western ideals at this time. China was a country that was much more closed off.
“People had never seen somebody like her. So much about it was doused in mystery. That part of the world was just not easy to get to.”
After her initial arrival, “{Moy]dips out of articles and newspaper reports then comes back in at certain points but after 1850 or 1851 there are no records of her.,” Szeto-Joe says.
Suh’s play goes beyond those years and explores further in history. “This is where the imagination comes in,” says Szeto-Joe.
While this is a play inspired by actual historical events, it is not a history play. In addition, it plays with time and reality a lot, Szeto-Joe says. Almost the entire play is delivered in direct address to the audience.
Moy originally came to this country to help the merchant trade and to help sell Chinese goods and products. “But later on she goes from the employment of these traders to P.T. Barnum. She’s no longer selling goods; it is more in the vein of a curiosity. We’ve explored how her performance would change.”
This extends to her wardrobe, Szeto-Joe says. “What pieces of hers have been discarded and what Western pieces have been adopted.”
“The Karnes cousins who were the merchants who brought her here reached an agreement with her father in which she would be here on display and in service to them for two years and would go back. She doesn’t go back in the play.” Szeto-Joe says. In historical accounts it’s unclear why she stayed, although during the early years both countries were having financial difficulties, which might have prompted the promoters to keep her in America longer to try to help recoup their losses, she adds.
Actually, as several people have pointed out, it’s unlikely that a member of royalty, as she was billed, would have agreed to such a mission and Afong Moy may not have been her real name, Szeto-Joe says.
“There’s a difference between looking and seeing a person and I challenge people to see the ways in which they have looked and not seen. And also the ways in which they have been looked at and not seen.”
“This girl has been brought over to this country and been put on display, put in an exhibit. Lloyd is saying this is not a victim play either. But looking in our 2026 eyes, we say that is a victim. But the audience isn’t the only one with eyes. She also gazed back at them. I think there is a power in that as well.”
Performances are scheduled for February 27 through March 22 at 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays at the Lester and Sue Smith Stage at the Gordy, 800 Rosine. Previews until opening night March 5. For more information, call 713-527-0123 or visit stageshouston.co. $29-$94.