Found in translation

A love triangle, devious business machinations, bumbling bureaucrats and chronically ill-timed miscommunication: playwright David Henry Hwang pulls all these elements together in his hit play, Chinglish.

The production - which has garnered unanimously glowing praise and has so far been seen by audiences in Chicago, Broadway, Berkeley and Costa Mesa - lands this week courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

The premise is simple: Daniel Cavanaugh, a businessman from Midwest America who owns a family-run sign-making company, arrives in China to lobby for a lucrative contract to take over the production of government signs, hoping to eradicate the erroneous ways in which they are translated. For example: a sign that should read "Slippery Slopes Ahead" is translated as "Take notice of safe, the slippery are very crafty." (Hwang said in earlier interviews that he got the idea for Chinglish after seeing plenty of comically inaccurate signs on the mainland.)

While there, Cavanaugh encounters shady politicians, a shrewd seductress and governmental bungling. The writing is sharp and acerbic, never mean-spirited, and turns the inevitable culture clashes and obfuscations into rich comedic fare.

"We are so excited," says director Leigh Silverman, a two-time Obie (Off Broadway Theatre Awards) winner. "It's always been our dream that this would play outside the US and it's just a thrilling opportunity for us."

There is, indeed, a universality in Hwang's writing that transcends cultural boundaries: it isn't necessary to understand the intricacies of miscommunication because such mistranslations can happen anywhere. "I think it's a story we can all relate to in a lot of ways," Silverman says.