New York City: March 2006 Archives
Well, I completed my off-Broadway trilogy last night by seeing SAKE WITH THE HAIKU GEISHA, a play written by Randall David Cook, at The Perry Street Theatre. I really enjoyed this show, and it has inspired me to see more off-Broadway productions.
From the review in The New York Times:
Randall David Cook's new play, "Sake With the Haiku Geisha," a collection of five anecdotes inspired by the playwright's own experience as an English-language teacher in Japan, is an often observant, witty evening about the ways in which other cultures can unexpectedly impinge on our own individual experience.
This elegant and precise production by the Gotham Stage Company, staged by Alex Lippard, combines Western realistic and Japanese Noh theater techniques. It is at its best in the first half of the 100-minute, intermissionless evening, as three 20-something English-language teachers are invited to share their stories on the last night of their visits to Japan. The uptight British graduate of Oxford, the gay but virginal American Southerner, and the hostile and sarcastic Canadian woman reveal small epiphanies that have affected their ways of dealing with loss, isolation and death, epiphanies that have their origins in the confusing culture in which they find themselves.
The three instructors are in Japan because they are "running from themselves," but the grace of the playwright's language and observations happily obscures this pedestrian insight. The other two anecdotes of the evening are less fortunate. As the Japanese host tells the story of his own family's decision to embrace English as a second language, Mr. Cook's powerful description of the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs becomes lost in a vague if well-intentioned plea for communication. The anecdote about the Haiku Geisha herself, a traditional hostess who speaks only in the poetic form most associated with Japanese culture, turns out to be a predictable tale of true love confronting the threat of an arranged marriage.
As a hostile and sarcastic Canadian woman myself (tee hee), I enjoyed the bizarre, funny, and touching honesty of the westerner's vignettes.
The actors were incredible as well, playing a wide range of characters, all completely believable. I love it when a piece is written so you are not only entertained, but you get the feeling that you are getting a glimpse behind the closed door of personal experiences.
