SVS’ production of The Comedy of Errors will be set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1912, during the United States Chinese Exclusion Act. In effect from 1882 to 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited ALL immigration of Chinese laborers and was preceded by rapidly rising anti-Chinese sentiment, racism, and violence. It was the first and only major law in American history to prevent all members of a specific national group from immigrating to the U.S. Those with blood relatives who had already received U.S. or Canadian citizenship or residency were allowed to immigrate, thus giving rise to “paper sons” (and occasionally “paper daughters”) who would illegally immigrate by purchasing paperwork falsely documenting their blood relation to a citizen/resident.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 continues to have lasting ramifications on U.S. immigration and ideologies. It set the precedent for a series of increasingly restrictive immigration laws, including the Immigration Act of 1907, which restricted entry from people with disabilities, mental illness, or in poverty. It also led to the eugenics-inspired Immigration Act of 1924, which completely prohibited all immigration from Asia and tightened the “national origins” quota system; federally funded eugenicists argued that “social inadequacies” were polluting the American gene pool and draining taxpayer resources. These quotas remained in place until 1965, and the echoes of these immigration laws continue to shape modern-day American views on immigration, immigrant rights, and what it means to be “an American.”

And yet, despite this setting, our production is indeed a big-energy, physical, farcical comedy—heightened reality is still grounded in reality. Bring the big, and let’s play!