The reviews are in for King of the Yees, Lauren Yee’s “only kind of true” comedy about her father, Larry, a booster of San Francisco’s Chinatown and an elder of the Yee Fung Toy Family Association, now in its New York premiere at Signature Theatre. Francis Jue, who created Larry when the play was first staged at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2017, plays him again opposite Kelly Marie Tran as Lauren, with Joshua Kahan Brody directing once more. The critics agree on Jue and on the quick-changing trio of Maureen Sebastian, David Shih and Jon Norman Schneider. They split over the play’s restless shape: some find the metatheatrical games a delight, others find them a distraction from the father and daughter at its center.
The verdict: eleven outlets have reviewed it so far, and only two give a score. New York Stage Review rates it 4 out of 5 from Michael Sommers, with a second critic there, Melissa Rose Bernardo, at 3, and Culture Sauce gives it 3 out of 5. The other nine publish no rating. Almost everyone praises Francis Jue and the three-actor ensemble. The New York Times, Vulture, Exeunt NYC and Washington Square News are the most taken with the play’s metatheatrical tricks and its second-act quest. TheaterMania and New York Theatre Guide find it uneven but come round to it. Talkin’ Broadway, Culture Sauce and New York Theater are the most reserved, finding bits that run long, a stop-and-go rhythm, or a family story crowded out by its own games.
What are critics saying about King of the Yees?
The New York Times
"Buckle Up for a Daughter’s Fantastical Quest"
Reviewer: Elisabeth Vincentelli
Vincentelli enjoys the guessing game the play sets up, in which the audience has to work out which parts of the Yee family story are real, which are embroidered and which are pure invention. She calls Francis Jue terrific as Larry, a man who flatters his daughter one minute and undercuts her the next.
"By Act II, Yee has hilariously thrown the conventions of the stage family story, even a self-referential one, out the window."
She places the play beside Cambodian Rock Band and Mother Russia as another sharp study of the cultural signals a community holds dear and half resents,, and enjoys the wild ride the second half becomes.
Read Elisabeth Vincentelli’s full review in The New York Times
Vulture
"Benevolent Associations in Chinatown: ‘King of the Yees’"
Reviewer: Sara Holdren
Holdren is the warmest voice in the field. She describes a play that announces itself as an elegy and then turns into a carnival ride, and credits Lauren Yee with writing about something serious without a trace of solemnity.
"King of the Yees is one of the most big-hearted plays I’ve seen in a while…"
She singles out Joshua Kahan Brody’s playful direction and a delightful Francis Jue, who has played Larry since the beginning, and enjoys the second act most of all, as the play seems to rewrite itself out from under its own author.
TheaterMania
"Review: Lauren Yee’s King of the Yees, an Exploration of What It Means to Be a Yee"
Reviewer: Dan Rubins
Rubins admits Yee’s brand of comedy has not always worked on him, and he still finds some of it bumpy here: the first act plays like a writer searching for her play, and a slow-motion action sequence comes off awkwardly. He ranks this above both Cambodian Rock Band and Mother Russia all the same, and names the accent lesson between Maureen Sebastian and David Shih as the best comic scene.
"…the lift-off into fantasy is mainly charming, especially a lion dancer lip-synching to “All That Jazz”…"
In the end he finds the second act’s quest tender, and Lauren’s need to understand her father genuinely moving.
New York Stage Review
"King of the Yees: Talking About Chinatown Royalty"
Reviewer: Michael Sommers · 4 out of 5
Sommers enjoys the shape-shifting from first scene to final dance party and calls the five-actor ensemble terrific, from Francis Jue’s sunny Larry to Kelly Marie Tran making a rather dour Lauren likable.
"It’s an entertaining, shape-shifting romp among cultural themes from the author of Cambodian Rock Band and Mother Russia."
He praises the costumes, the set, the lighting and the sound, and says Brody stages a complicated show swiftly and surely. The site ran a second notice: Melissa Rose Bernardo’s review gives it 3 out of 5, finding the opening clumsy and most of the first act slow, before a second act that races along and a graceful final speech.
Culture Sauce
Reviewer: Thom Geier · 3 out of 5
Geier hears an early play in it, written before Yee had fully worked out her timing, and he finds Brody’s direction stop-and-go. He enjoys the whimsy, and his favorite turn is Jon Norman Schneider’s Model Ancestor.
"…there are many genuine laugh-out-loud moments as Sebastian, Shih, and Jon Norman Schneider assume multiple outsize roles."
He also finds lulls between the jokes, more slow-motion sequences than the play needs and a running gag that wears thin. He thinks Kelly Marie Tran sometimes gets lost in a passive role, though the final reunion with her father lands.
New York Theatre Guide
"a father-daughter story with a surrealist spin"
Reviewer: Gillian Russo
Russo accepts that the framing is convoluted, and argues that untangling your family history is too. The play clicked for her in the second act, when Lauren and a lion dancer trade moves to American pop hits, and she praises the nimble ensemble while missing Jue once Larry disappears.
"King of the Yees is less of a traditional family play and more of a formal experiment…"
She finds it confounding at times but never boring, and suggests it may send you off to call your dad.
Talkin’ Broadway
Reviewer: James Wilson
Wilson reads the play through the Sichuan Opera he saw in Chengdu, a variety bill of sketches, music and face-changing, and finds the comparison apt.
"…the result is a dizzying and generally successful attempt at creating a theatrical Bian lian."
He thinks the satire is gentler than Yellow Face, some bits run long, the father-daughter scenes are less poignant than he hoped and the second-act routines do not always cohere. He credits the cast, with Jue a lovable rascal and Tran persuasive as the daughter.
Exeunt NYC
"An exuberant metatheatrical delight."
Reviewer: Loren Noveck
Noveck treats it as a history play about how families turn anecdote into truth, and admires the way the three Laurens and three Larrys keep its ideas from turning ponderous. She praises the ensemble and Michelle J. Li’s costumes, while finding the first act static and the deeper second-act set leaving scenes stranded.
"But it’s so clever, so metatheatrical, and so affectionate throughout that I hardly minded."
That is her answer to a sentimental ending, which she reads as a warm and witty tribute to the playwright’s family.
New York Theater
Reviewer: Jonathan Mandell
Mandell is among the coolest here. He notes that Yee wrote this before her more substantial plays, and that it has been a regional favorite ever since.
"“King of the Yees,” in other words, is more kind of surreal than kind of true."
He finds real warmth in the father-daughter story and calls Jue always wonderful, but thinks the poignant moments are crowded out by Lauren’s fanciful adventures and by too much metatheatrical play.
Washington Square News
"Review: Long live the ‘King of the Yees’"
Reviewer: Ethan Li
Li laughed hardest at the scene in which one actor coaches another on her accent, and says Jue grounds the first hour’s chaos with pure charisma. He finds the second act weaker, and Tran reduced to the straight man.
"Never have I seen such a chameleonic Asian American ensemble tear up the stage…"
The trio of David Shih, Maureen Sebastian and Jon Norman Schneider is his standout, and he ends on a celebration of Chinatowns everywhere.
Also reviewed by: The New York Sun (Elysa Gardner, "Lauren Yee’s Kind of Theatrical Magic"), whose review sits behind a registration wall.
For more from the New York critics, read our roundups for The Ask at Theater 555 and Other Desert Cities at the Hudson Theatre.
King of the Yees runs at Signature Theatre’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre in the Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, through November 15, 2026. The running time is two hours and 10 minutes, including an intermission. Production photos by HanJie Chow.
