Review: Mesmerizing Chinese Lady at Stages tells the story of the first Chinese woman in the U.S.

Only 14 years-old when she was brought to America, Afong Moy was used as a living advertisement for the Chinese wares and furnishings of merchants Nathaniel and Frederic Carnes. As the first Asian woman in the United States, her arrival in 1834 was followed by decades of performing the role of the exotic Chinese female, with bound feet and a Cantonese accent to add to her mystique.

Her beautiful silken red and royal blue shimmering costume (Sandra Zhihan Jia, Sage Cantu) seems authentic, but the play makes us wonder. She is a talking China doll, with the stated aim of improving cultural relations. Quite the mission statement for a young girl sold by her family into servitude. As she ages, her costumes become less formal, more westernized. She incrementally loses her Cantonese language, the culinary fare of her childhood, well, almost everything. She ages out of her job, replaced by a younger Chinese woman. Her obsolescence is hard to watch, even though her final words ring with reminders of perseverance and victory.