Susan Priver (Photo by Doug Engalla)
Reviewed by G. Bruce Smith
Dance On Productions at Hudson Backstage Theatre
Through May 18
In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel is one of Tennessee Williams’ later plays (1969) that is rarely produced. A box office failure, it was written at a time when he was spiraling downward into depression and alcoholism.
So it is commendable that Dance On Productions has taken on this strange play (a West Coast premiere, at the Hudson Backstage Theatre) and has created a highly professional staging that showcases the top-notch talents of director Jack Heller, the cast and the technical crew.
However, the play itself — while frequently poetic — is overwritten and features characters that, for the most part, are not emotionally accessible.
Tokyo Hotel opens with Miriam (Susan Priver) sitting as the sole customer in the bar (gorgeously designed by Joel Daavid), crudely trying to seduce the handsome young Bar-Man (Remington Hoffman) and displaying the cringeworthy behavior of an “Ugly American.” Her advances – both verbal and physical – repel the Bar-Man, who makes it clear he is engaged to be married but who is also the ultimate purveyor of Japanese restraint and politeness.
It is an intriguing opening with palpable tension and one that shows promise for highly engaging dramatic conflict. But that thread is soon lost as the action switches to the real plot of the play – the mental breakdown of Miriam’s alcoholic husband Mark (Rene Rivera), an artist who has come to Tokyo to boost his drooping career by developing a new style. Sadly deluded, he believes he is the first artist to discover color, and spends time in his hotel room spray painting canvases and rolling around on them, naked.
Miriam wants to be rid of her husband without losing his financial support. In monologues and in dialogue, she expresses that desire over and over again. But — how many times do we need to hear it? Also, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her because she is so unlikeable and so lacking in compassion for her husband’s painful meltdown.
Eventually, she contacts Mark’s Manhattan art dealer and close friend Leonard (Paul Coates) and asks him to join them in Japan. When he arrives, she pleads with him to take Mark back to New York. Leonard shows much more compassion for Mark, but ultimately cannot change the artist‘s fate.
Director Heller coaxes strong performances from the cast, though the action often feels somewhat static — but that is because he is hamstrung by a script that keeps Miriam sitting at her table for almost the entire play.
Standouts in the cast are Hoffman as Bar-Man, whose restrained horror at Miriam’s behavior is almost hypnotic, and Rivera as Mark, who presents a strong contrast to Bar-Man — as the tortured artist, he thrashes about the stage, as he sinks deeper into psychosis. His performance is all the more poignant knowing that his breakdown mirrors what Williams was experiencing when he wrote the play.
Despite Tokyo Bar’s shortcomings, it’s worth pointing to the program’s director’s note where Heller makes a strong case for why the project was undertaken. He says that, like Mark, Williams was trying to find a new way of expressing himself – a process that was not easy and even painful. “Today it seems that people have lost patience with exploration and want a product that matches past products neatly packaged. [They] insists on plays equal to Streetcar and Glass Menagerie. . . [Yet] Williams once said, ‘Make voyages. . . attempt them. . . there is nothing else’.”
Hudson Backstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 3 pm; thru May 18. https://www.onstage411.com/newsite/show/play_info.asp?show_id=7352 Running time: one hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.
