(needs to be updated) MÍNG OH. GUANG Míng? MÍNG OH. GUANG Míng? MÍNG ORANGE. GUANG OH! MÍNG ORANGES STRAIGHT FROM THE TREE. NEVER GET SICK OF THE SOUR OR THE SWEET OF GUANG Míng? MÍNG ORANGE. GUANG Míng. (GUANG’s dance gets sexy. BOSS’ WIFE enters the Happy Dragon kitchen.) MÍNG, BOSS’ WIFE & GUANG ORANGE BOSS’ WIFE BEEF. BOSS’ WIFE MOO. GUANG & MÍNG MOO? GUANG & MÍNG OH. (MARCO enters. GUANG gives him the phone, trying to escape BOSS’ WIFE, who searches for ingredients, cleaver in hand.) MARCO Oye, Orange Beef. Tu órden está allí. (Translation) Listen, Orange Beef. Your order’s here. GUANG & MÍNG ORANGE. BOSS’ WIFE We’re short a delivery man. GUANG Wait! Espera! Can’t you see? My hands are sort of... MARCO & BOSS’ WIFE ORANGE? GUANG full. MARCO But the Boss’ Wife is short a / bull! BOSS’ WIFE (Raising the cleaver) Bull! GUANG Shh, Míng está aquí with / me. (Translation) Ming’s here with me. MARCO Míng’s ten thousand miles away, orange beefing someone else, making BOSS’ WIFE & MARCO moo MÍNG, GUANG & BOSS’ WIFE ORANGE BOSS’ WIFE BEEF. MÍNG MOO? MARCO another / Wáng Yuè! GUANG Wáng Yuè is enough for us! You’re jealous, and a liar / too. (BOSS’ WIFE plunges the cleaver into a wood block. Other restaurant sounds seep in and grow. MARCO assists BOSS’ WIFE, passing her ingredients.) BOSS’ WIFE Too tasty. Our customers desire / you! GUANG You’ll see, Wáng Yuè’ll go to Yale, buy this place, / and fire you. MARCO And fire you, ‘cause I speak English mejor que / tú. (Translation) better than you. (GUANG tries to keep dancing with MÍNG. BOSS’ WIFE cooks.) GUANG Today I’ll bring the beef home, sugar, stuff the dough in my shoe, win enough at the casino, flower, in an hour or two BOSS’ WIFE BEEF, SUGAR, DOUGH, FLOUR, MARCO & MÍNG ORANGE. (SNAKEHEAD enters, so GUANG must do a quick u-turn.) GUANG to pay the / fat MARCO & BOSS’ WIFE FAT! GUANG snakehead I owe. MARCO / Who? SNAKEHEAD Me. I’m a snakehead. Make my bank account grow! I need a SNAKEHEAD, MÍNG & GUANG BIG CASH DELIVERY – GUANG FROM MY FAMILY SNAKEHEAD, MÍNG & GUANG ONE HUNDRED TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS GUANG THAT BROUGHT MY NEPHEW AND ME ACROSS THE SEA. SNAKEHEAD Yes! Fatten all of these cattle up with money, then send those greenbacks to me and my honey! MÍNG Mmmm... money’s delicious. Mmmmy honey’s delicious. (GUANG’s dance becomes cow-like. BOSS’ WIFE is searching for the final ingredient. GUANG tries to escape her.) MARCO Guey: (Translation) Dude: this snakehead, this smuggler, this piece of shit who sent you and your nephew here in a container ship – you and your family owe this ugly, empty, lousy thug a hundred twenty thousand bucks? Tú estás fucked! (Translation) You are fucked! GUANG We’ve paid ‘im forty thousand, MARCO But you owe ‘im eighty yet?! SNAKEHEAD, BOSS’ WIFE, MARCO & MÍNG You better get back to work so you can pay that debt! GUANG Míng! (BOSS’ WIFE catches GUANG. Sounds crescendo.) BOSS’ WIFE Batter ‘n flour you, shake, spatter ‘n shower you with fat, fry you up, take you out, shh, now relax under the heat lamp, while we feed you extra sauce to keep your orange feet damp. Fat American dudes love fake Chinese food, so there’s a line outside the door for SNAKEHEAD, GUANG, MARCO & MÍNG ORANGE. ORANGE. ORANGE. ORANGE. (BOSS’ WIFE cooks GUANG.) GUANG YES! MÍNG, I’M YOUR MÍNG OH! SNAKEHEAD, GUANG, MÍNG, MARCO & BOSS’ WIFE ORANGE SNAKEHEAD, GUANG, MARCO & BOSS’ WIFE BEEF! MÍNG OH! GUANG MOO.

(needs to be updated) ZHŌNG YÌ Guang! GUANG Huh? ZHŌNG YÌ You’ve been in here way too long, so “How To Get Out Of An Elevator” is the name of this song. GUANG So how do I get out? ZHŌNG YÌ First— GUANG Wait. Who are you? ZHŌNG YÌ I’m General Tso. GUANG So? ZHŌNG YÌ No, not just Tso. I’m a General too. GUANG People’s Army? ZHŌNG YÌ Homeland Security. And I have a special jam I wanna do. It’s called “How To Get Out Of An American Jam When The Blueberry Is You.” We’ll report you, then detain you, take you to court, and then arraign you, and if you can’t afford a lawyer, it’s much shorter, we just deport you – hey! GUANG I can’t just disappear. There’s too much riding on my life. Who will help my son and wife pay the loans that I still owe, and owe, and owe? ZHŌNG YÌ Wow, your life sucks. I was just kidding, though. General Tso is just an alias. In Hong Kong, they think folks like me and you are aliens just like they do here, but my new identity means homeland security for me: even though I was a foreign-born man, now I can be secure in my new homeland. Hey! GUANG Zhōng Yì? It’s / you? ZHŌNG YÌ Used to be. I got rich in Hong Kong. Life can be a bitch but that’s not the name of this song. GUANG How could you disappear on your son? In his dying breath, he gave me all that he had left, GUANG (cont’d) so I breathed in his life, his dream, his debt. ZHŌNG YÌ Yes, and who’s fault was that? Not mine. If you had left him back in Fuzhou, he would’ve been fine. You try to save people, that’s when you hurt them. GUANG (Considering) But it’s selfish to desert them. ZHŌNG YÌ Guang. You’ll be helpless as long as you send each cent to someone else. It’s not selfish to want to make something of yourself. I have a new family now. Three kids. Two cars. Life is beautiful once we decide to make it ours. America means freedom. Think you’re trapped by debt? Wrong. Forget GUANG Ming and Wang Yue? ZHŌNG YÌ Yes. What’s taken you so long? Liberate yourself from your family! This is where you belong! And “How To Get Out Of Obligation” is the name of this song! ZHŌNG YÌ & GUANG “How To Get Out Of Obligation” is the name of this song! GUANG If I could let / them go, ZHŌNG YÌ Let them go. GUANG who knows who I / could be, ZHŌNG YÌ Let them go. GUANG what I’d do - if I were / free. ZHŌNG YÌ Let them go. GUANG How can I... ZHŌNG YÌ Let them... GUANG Go.

Ming, if I bleed to death, Might my head get so light That it flies away And makes a kite for Wang Yue? (GUANG shakes his head and stops writing, trying to stay practical—to write a will, not a poem.) Marco, give my wife the useful things I’ve left: The dollars in the mooncake tin. Sell my bicycle and send my wife the money. Wang Yue, forgive me for not giving you enough. Ming, please sew the holes in me, Or sow me into the earth. Plant my body like a seed Deep in a garden. Grow me into a tree Of oranges to eat. All I want is to be used. I mean useful. (GUANG shakes his head again and stops writing.) Ming, I think I worked so hard That I discarded the parts of me that weren’t useful: My poems, And photos of Want Yue, And thinking that your belly was the moon. I thought I worked faster without them. Now there’s nothing left of me left. Have I been so useful to this country That it has used me up? Wang Yue, forgive me for not giving you myself. Ming, your lunatic, tock, is stopping, Drip by drop. I forget the poem about us and the moon. Was I the moon and you the body of water? Don’t lose the useless part of me. The heart of me. All I want is to be… I mean…