Tea

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman

Hero Theatre at the Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts,

Thru May 15

Tea, the final installment in Velina Hasu Houston’s trilogy of plays about Japanese war brides, takes place, geographically speaking, in Junction City, a small town in the northeast stretch of Kansas. That’s close to where Houston, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an American GI of African American and Native American descent, spent part of her childhood. Such communities — places the U.S. military specifically designated for American servicemen with foreign-born wives — were scattered throughout the United States between 1946 and 1960. These locales were far from urban centers like San Francisco or New York with their flourishing immigrant cultures. For the vulnerable, these forcibly segregated places in the middle of rural America, bred isolation and depression.

In Tea, which premiered off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1987 and was staged locally at the Odyssey Theatre in 1991, a quartet of women come together to pay their respects to the memory of a fifth acquaintance who has taken her own life in the wake of twin tragedies. These four are very different in upbringing and temperament. Atsuko (Hua Lee), married to a Japanese American, comes from a privileged background and is snobbish and condescending. Teruko (Olivia Cordell), of modest origins and with a husband from Texas, is sweet-tempered and considerate. The other two are widows: a comfortably assimilated Chizuye (Elaine Ackles) had been happily married to a Mexican-American before his demise and had participated in the running of the family restaurant. Setsuko (Hiroko Imai), wife to an African-American, is a compassionate person and the only one of the four who’d kept up a relationship with the dead woman, Himiko (Tomoko Karina), whose erratic behavior stoked rumors of promiscuity and madness.

Now a restless spirit, Himiko haunts her former living quarters, where, over tea, the reunion among these other Japanese war brides is taking place. Bit by bit, their private selves are revealed. At one point, the narrative shifts to the past, as each woman recounts her meeting with her future husband, an event which provokes pain and/or conflict after she chooses to leave, for his sake, her family forever. Later, with the performers depicting their characters’ respective husbands, we come to understand the nightmare that drove Himiko to her desperate act. A further sequence elaborates on who these women are when we see them through the eyes of their children.

Directed by Rebecca Wear at the Rosenthal Theatre at Inner-City Arts, the production features notable tech, in particular designer Dean Harada’s music and sound, which mingles with the narrative throughout, pushing it forward while underscoring its poignancy and pathos. (It’s almost as if Harada’s sound is itself a voice in the story.)  Carlo Maghirang’s scenic design and Azra King-Abadi’s lighting together create an arresting ambience; the set, the dead Himiko’s vacated dwelling, blends the impression of the forlorn remnants of an unhappy human life, now over, with a world of shadows, newly commenced.

Tea, an intensely personal work that the playwright has called “a poem to my mother,” has the makings of a powerful theatrical experience. (It certainly was for me when I saw it in 1991.) While its characters evolve from a specific time, place and culture, its message about the struggle of women for personal autonomy within marriage remains relevant and true, and a story about women who fail to secure that freedom is still a heartbreaking one.  

But (as with any work) for a production to fully carry this message home, in-depth performances are imperative. 

In this case, the characters who most move the plot forward — the snooty Atsuko, her down-to-earth foil, Chizuye and the crucially long-suffering Himiko —are too superficially rendered to deliver the goods. While Cordell as the gracious Teruko and Imai as the intense and thoughtful Setsuko are well-grounded, Lee, whose role as a bitch is a plum one, relies almost entirely on contemptuous grimaces to communicate her character’s disdainful nature. Ackles’ Chizuye is serviceable but there are no layers to her performance. The same is true of Karina. Well-cast from a physical standpoint — appropriately wraith-like in her pale garment and agile as she moves about the space — she banks too heavily on Houston’s language and the built-in melodrama of the plot to relay Himiko’s pain. Only by calling up from her own experience the loneliness and sense of bitter loss of this deeply troubled character can she sway this production to where it ought to be.

Hero Theatre at the Rosenthal Theater, Inner-City Arts, 720 Kohler Street, downtown; Thurs.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm & 7 pm; dark Sun., April 24, 7 pm; thru May 15. Running time: approximately 80 minutes with no intermission.  www.herotheatre.org

 Note: The production is double cast.