How the Light Gets In
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Boston Court Pasadena
Through October 27
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Americans live in a culture which values the new, the shiny, the unimpaired. If a plate or cup chips, most of us throw it away.
In Japan, it’s a different story. A Japanese philosophy, wabi-sab, teaches that worn or imperfect objects may have great value. Kintsugi, the repairing of broken pottery, is a kindred art form that views imperfections in an object as part of their history and integral to their worth. Rather than discard the object, kintsugi instructs that it be cared for and treasured.
Rooted in the 15th century, this venerable notion infuses E. M. Lewis’s poetical new play, premiering at Boston Court Pasadena where it’s been artfully staged by director Emilie Pascale Beck. The title is plucked from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem”: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack (a crack!) in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Lewis’s pivotal character, Grace (Amy Sloan) is in need of light. She’s a travel writer who also dabbles in marketing and currently volunteers twice a week as a docent in a museum. The museum’s adjacent Japanese garden is where the friendless Grace meets the two people who will support and care for her as she grapples with a diagnosis of breast cancer and all the subsequent pain, suffering and doubt that ensue in its wake.
First comes a young runaway, Kat (Chelsea Kurtz), who’s been living in the garden under its giant weeping willow and emerges from behind it after a call from her oncologist reduces Grace to helpless terrified tears. Kat’s youth and vulnerability provide Grace with an immediate distraction, and she begins to bring food to the garden for Kat to eat and takes her shopping in an effort to buy her clothes to replace the dirty rumpled garments she typically wears. The shopping trip is only partly successful, for after happily donning a new floral dress, Kat promptly conceals it underneath the grimy sweatshirt and jacket she goes about in every day.
The second, more significant encounter is with a Japanese architect, Haruki (Ryun Yu) who’s been employed by the museum to design a teahouse but who cannot seem to come up with a satisfactory design for this particular project, despite his accomplished resume and reputation of note. Their first meeting is not auspicious; Haruki is a moody disgruntled man who views Grace as a trespasser on his turf. But when Grace confides her problem, he softens and makes an effort to become her friend. One day at their accustomed meeting place he brings tea in a tea set that had belonged to his parents and his grandparents before them. In one of the cups Grace notices a crack, which is when Haruki explains about kintsugi and quotes Cohen’s line about the light.
Their relationship changes after Grace asks Haruki to accompany her to the hospital for a medical procedure that will leave her too woozy to drive. The request is followed by an awkward silence, then Haruki agrees. It’s clear Grace has no other friend or family member to call on. Attractive, well-spoken and financially independent, she is nevertheless quite alone.
Nor is she the only one whose appearance deceives. Beneath his considerable bluster, Haruki too has suffered great loss. As for Kat, though we never learn exactly what has brought her to her homeless state, we know it involved trauma. And fourth character Tommy Z (Dieterich Gray), the gruff take-no-prisoners tattoo artist who shows Kat an occasional kindness and whom Grace turns to later on, has heartaches of his own.
Each of these people is uniquely damaged — rather like a one-of-a-kind worn or cracked piece of pottery which can be mended kintsugi-style, so that its imperfections come to define its beauty and its value.
This parallel, between a person and something we treasure, is what makes this play so special. Several well-known works and many lesser ones have been written about women coping with breast cancer — its mutilation of the body, its testing of the spirit. In this regard How the Lights Gets In treads no new terrain. What it does do is portray four people, in their loneliness, bereavement and/or deprivation, with a poignant dignity, one bred from the simple acts of the benevolence they provide each other.
Yu, who draws his truculent artist with sharp angles and brash humor, delivers the production’s most engaging and memorable performance. Kurtz’s role calls for her to play a reticent fearful person who eventually emerges from her shell, which she does with a streamlined nuance that has you smiling at the end. Gray’s forthright tattooist stamps the narrative with his own gritty intensity. As the pivotal Grace, Sloan is fine, but she might think about tempering her character’s weepiness. A touch more feistiness and a bit less self-pity would make Grace more interesting and the entire production more captivating and cathartic.
In terms of tech: Tesshi Nakagawa’s set is a bit on the stark side, as it’s dominated by graphics of tall leafless branches, with little of the grace of a weeping willow — but perhaps that starkness is supposed to reflect this juncture in Grace’s life. Jack Arky’s sound design is varied and versatile and adds great ornament to the narrative.
Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m.; through Oct. 27. BostonCourtPasadena.org or (626) 683-6801. Running time: 85 minutes with no intermission.
