The unique feature to the story telling is that the “native country” changed each night as another pair of actors were brought in from another ethnic group to tell the same story.  I saw the production the night the “native country” was China and the play starred BD Wong.  But, of course, I didn’t see the second night with Tony Shalhoub so I cannot speak of the comparison.  I believe you were asked to see how the experience of growing up with your parents in the native country was so different than experiencing your parents as foreigners in the new country and how this shaped completely different children. But that never was etched out very clearly.

The play felt a lot like Love Letters by A.R. Gurney except the two actors were not reading letters to each other-they were talking to the audience about their memories of the other.  The play moved very slowly. There was no interaction between each other. There was very little conflict. I had wanted the language to be a bit more poetic but it ultimately just became a bit sweet and sentimental. There were a few moments toward the end of the play when the brother and sister began to age that I felt a little pulled in emotionally, but for the majority of the play, I was held at the distance and simply listened to the observations of the two characters. The play felt like you were having a lunch with a very charismatic old friend that just waxed on and on.