LOS ANGELES — “An interracial love story!” the character of Moon Quan gushes in the new play “Unbroken Blossoms.” 

“And between a Chinese man and a Caucasian woman, no less.”

Working on this play has been a profound history lesson for actor Ron Song, who plays Quan. 

Of course, the “Jury Duty” actor knew of the silent film director DW Griffith and his controversial film “The Birth of a Nation,” but he had never heard of Broken Blossoms, which was released four years later. 

The film stars Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess, a Caucasian actor in yellow face who plays the Chinese man who falls in love with her. Watching the 1919 film to prepare for the play, Song says he was torn.

“If you see a still image, it’s offensive,” he said. “But watching the film and putting [it] in the context of the time, you kind of understand that the intentions are good. He’s doing his best, right?”

The problem, he says, was a systemic one — a film industry and a society in general that was exclusionary.

Film history has always fascinated playwright Philip W. Chung, especially the history of Asian Americans in Hollywood. His play, having its world premiere at East West Players, follows two of them, Quan and James Leong, who Griffith hired as Chinese Consultants on “Broken Blossoms.”

“In terms of like what they did on this particular movie, there were not that many records,” Chung said. “I don’t even know exactly what the role of a consultant was back then.”

Which freed him up, he says, to create his fictionalized version of what their experience on the film might have been.

“What must that have been like to be there, where you also have your own dreams as a filmmaker and yet your role in society at the time is also very specific about what you can and cannot do in a way that’s more restrictive than it is now, right?” he said.

Director Jeff Liu agrees that the film is problematic through a 2024 lens, but he also says it was progressive for its time. 

With interracial relationships prohibited and Chinese exclusion laws in place, having a Caucasian actor in yellow face was the only way a film like “Broken Blossoms” could have been made at the time.

“To me, I would lean on the side of something is still better than nothing, right?” he said. “That if there’s something that is creating empathy or interest, right, that is already combating all the other things that are going on in society.”

Liu says the experience enabled James B. Leong to make his own feature film, “Lotus Blossom,” a few years later, which featured a largely AAPI cast.

“All of those things matter,” Lui said.

“One of the things that just blew my mind was just to know that there were filmmakers like James Leong at the time, that he made a feature in 1921,” Chung said. “You know, that’s something that’s still hard to do now!”

As an Asian American who only started acting a few years ago, Song says this play helps fill in some of the holes in Hollywood history.

“Who even were the giants that shoulders were standing on?” he said. “We have some idea, but very little of this time.”

He hopes audiences will appreciate the work and the struggles of those pioneers from 100 years ago while also realizing their work continues.

“We want great representation,” Song said. “We want to tell our stories in the most nuanced ways possible and not be marginalized in any way.”