When actors don't fit the part

"Free your mind and the rest will follow. Be color-blind; don't be so shallow."

That cleaned-up Funkadelic refrain is one of the many slogans that flash by with the speed of a Super Bowl ad in "Yellow Face," David Henry Hwang's sharp and sometimes bracing sendup of himself and the stereotypes that imprison Asian-Americans.

The comedy, which opened Saturday in a Mu Performing Arts production at the Guthrie Theater, is smart, funny and ultimately revelatory, even if it packs a bit too much in its script.

"Yellow Face" uses humor as a blade, cutting to the quick of some of the most enduring archetypes that bedevil Asian-Americans.

The complicated plot, partly based on actual events, includes scenes of plays within a play, congressional testimonies and reporters' coverage of controversies. In the early 1990s, a playwright named David Hwang (get it?), who is played by Randy Reyes, leads the charge against the casting of a white actor to play a major Asian character when the blockbuster musical "Miss Saigon" arrives on Broadway.

His battle, captured in newspaper clippings read by an announcer, is ultimately unsuccessful, but he seems to be true to his cause. After the protests, David has an urgent need to find a lead actor for his own play. He ends up with a white actor to play the lead Asian role.

The playwright and the actor have a falling-out -- the play is a failure -- but the actor goes on to become a successful interpreter of Asian parts. More than that, he becomes an advocate for Asian-American causes.

This is a fearless, inviting comedy. Its subject is very specific, yet it's one that anyone should be able to appreciate. If "Yellow Face" seems to sag a little in the second act, it is because the show falls into a trap that often trips up plays based in fact. It is overstuffed, with appearances by senators, wrongly imprisoned Chinese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee and an icky reporter from the New York Times.

Still, I laughed my way through director Rick Shiomi's fast-paced production. He has a really good acting company led by Reyes as David and Matt Rein as Marcus, the white actor who goes on to be an Asian star. Reyes shows us David's ego and indignation without overdoing it. Rein captures Marcus' smarmy earnestness, deceit and dawning consciousness.

Kurt Kwan shows a wonderful range, including invoking the rectitude of David's father, Mr. Hwang. Rose Le Tran, Don Eitel, Kim Kivens and Wade Vaughn, who plays the announcer, all work seamlessly to make "Yellow Face" a work of levity and glaring light.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390