Interior Chinatown Lesson Plan

Discuss the significance of death for the actors in Act IV. How has this affected Willis, both positively and negatively, throughout his life?

The Asian characters on Black and White are often killed, requiring them to not work for the following forty-five days, "just long enough for everyone to forget you existed." For Willis, who feels like he is on the cusp of success, his death at the end of Act III is a major blow: it means that he has to start all over again trying to get a break-out role. But it is not always a negative thing: his mother died frequently when she was younger, allowing her to spend more time with her son. He concludes, "When she was dead, she got to...