 |
| Mi Kang at Nao in A Tale for the Time Being (John Ulman) |
A Tale for the Time
Being
Book-It Repertory Theatre
Through October 9, 2016
Book-It’s new production, A Tale for the Time Being, adapted from the Ruth Ozeki novel by Laura Ferri, is a heart-breaking and
mesmerizing story. Book-It hired Desdemona
Chiang to direct it, which was a great move, because she helps create a
fluid and graceful rhythm to the production.
The tale has many flavors, including dark ones, but is all
told first-person by Nao (Mi Kang),
a sixteen year old in Japan, through her diary that has floated, carefully
wrapped in plastic and a Hello Kitty lunchbox from Japan to the coast of
Canada. A writer, Ruth (Mariko Kita)
finds the package floating near her island home and becomes obsessed with the
contents of the lunchbox.
Her husband, Oliver (a warmly geeky Michael Patten), contextualizes the lunchbox’s potential travel
from the tsunami-wrecked Japan to Canada, and adds key moments of bird lore
about various crow species that wind through the tale. Ruth reads passages of
diary to Oliver as they try to unwind the mystery of Nao’s life.
Kang is enchanting as the young woman whose adventures we
follow and dominates as the key character. Some of those adventures are
harrowing. Nao speaks of both her father and herself as feeling periodically
suicidal. Apparently in Japanese culture, suicide is looked at as far less
awful than in the U.S. Not that it has no consequences to those left behind,
but just less dire and forbidden.
Kita gracefully manages the writer-narrator who gets
invested in the story and distracted from her own writing. Ruth is avoiding
finishing a memoir about her mother’s decline from Alzheimer’s. So, Ruth’s
story, too, is a bit dark.
But the overall effect of the evening is not as dreary. It’s
life. It’s real. The character of Nao is interesting because she lived for a
time with her family in California until they were forced by job loss back to
Japan. So, Nao can reflect on the differences in cultures.
Nao also gets bullied terribly in school and does not feel
connected to anyone but her mother and father, barely, until she’s sent for the
summer to her great-grandmother, Jiko (Yoda-light-like Khanh Doan), a nun. There Nao learns to become her own “supah-hero”
in enchanting fashion, and has the means to survive the terrors that life has
to offer, sometimes.
The rest of the cast also does a great job becoming multiple
characters, including the taunting school children. Scott Koh walks a delicate line as the suicidal father and does not
drag the audience down. Annie Yim
changes from harried mother to French maid-harlot recruiter Babette and seems
like two different people. Rachel Rene
has a fun role as the supportive nun. Kevin
Lin has a challenging role as an uncle who was forced to become a Japanese kamikaze
pilot during World War II even though he could not kill others.
This is a wonderful, woman-centered story with cultural
depth and insights. Think of it like looking at a tapestry, with much to see
and experience, as the characters say, “for the time being.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is a moderated comment section. Any comment can be deleted if the moderator feels that basic civility standards are not being met. Disagreements, however, if respectfully stated, are certainly welcome. Just keep the discussion intelligent and relatively kind.