Yee, Verily

It wasn't until Byron Yee auditioned for the film role of a Chinese restaurateur -- a part he lost because he couldn't speak broken English well enough -- that he began to really ponder his own Chinese ancestry. Up to that point, Yee had thought of himself as an American comedian from Oklahoma, where Chinatown was (as he describes it) limited to the confines of his apartment. In the early '80s, Yee went west to San Francisco to pursue a comedy career, and settled into gigs at the Punch Line and the Holy City Zoo. After that calamitous audition, Yee started casting around for authentic Chinese accents, which led to discussions with his family, and ultimately, to the story of his late father's immigration travails. When he went to research the story at nearby Angel Island, Yee discovered poems carved on the wall by "paper sons," Chinese immigrants who claimed to be sons of the Chinese who had already obtained American citizenship. Angel Island served as a kind of holding ground for immigrants while they were questioned and paperwork was processed. Spurred on by the poems and personal records, Yee created Paper Son, an autobiographical solo show about his heritage and the people who came before. The show, which played to enthusiastic crowds at the Seattle and San Francisco Fringe Festivals, previews at 8 p.m. Thursday (and runs through Feb. 14) at the new Cliff Osmond Theater, 340 Mason (at Geary), S.F. Admission is $12-20; call 388-4449. (H.W.)