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Friday, Nov 21, 2008
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Snow Falling on Cedars at Book-it Repertory Theatre |
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| Snow Falling on Cedars at Book-it Repertory Theatre | ||
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by Miryam Gordon -
SGN A&E Writer Snow Falling on Cedars Book by David Guterson Adapted and directed by Kevin McKeon Book-It Repertory Theatre September 21 to October 14 David Guterson was influenced heavily by To Kill A Mockingbird, as a youth. His book, Snow Falling on Cedars, has a similar quality, with similar prejudices expressed, except toward Japanese, rather than Blacks. Essentially, a young American man who is of Japanese descent is charged with a murder based on circumstantial evidence and his own stoic sullenness to tell a truth he thought no one would believe. Kabuo Miyamoto (Andy Justus) has grown up with Carl Heine (Tim Gouran) in the San Juan Islands prior to World War II. Friends as youths, Carl becomes tainted by prejudice against the Japanese that attack U.S. soldiers and breaks off his friendships with the Japanese families he's grown up with. Carl, Sr. (Jim Lapan in a nice turn of a small role) dies before completing the sale of a piece of strawberry field to the Imada family. Carl, Jr. is caught in his mother's hostility toward giving them the land, once she is in control of the property. Then, the Imada family is interned far away from the Pacific Northwest, in the desert town of Manzanar, California. Will Carl Jr. do the right thing and sell back the land to Kabuo when the war is over? He doesn't seem to have a chance to decide, before he is found dead off the side of his fishing boat. Nels Gudmundsson (Eddie Levi Lee), Kabuo's defense attorney, seems modeled on Atticus Finch, though not as reviled and threatened for taking a Japanese man's case as Finch was for defending a black man. He is dogged in his defense of his client and good at finding the holes in witnesses' stories. Eddie Levi Lee does the role proud, and displays all the earnestness of character called for. However, the character's summation to the jury lacked real points of contention, basically exhorting the jury/audience not to convict based on race, but on the facts. However, he doesn't get to pull apart the circumstantial evidence, so that exhortation really didn't seem like enough. Kevin McKeon both adapted and directed this Book-It production. His adaptation had much narration made into spoken dialogue of sorts, in the manner of Book-It's unique play creation process. However, while he kept the story intact, he seemed to include longish stretches of narration that didn't always seem that important, or didn't quite propel the story forward. His most successful area was within the trial, where he had witnesses take the stand and then step into active story-showing, so that the testimony is demonstrated and we can see it as it happens. There is a cross-cultural love story, as well, of an American girl of Japanese descent and a white boy of unspecified heritage. Jonah Von Spreecken plays Ishmael Chambers, the boy who becomes a soldier, loses an arm to the Japanese attacks, and comes home to take over his father's newspaper. Ishmael is very conflicted, since he loved Hatsue (Mona Leach), but was ultimately rejected by her during her internment, and he's very angry about losing his arm to the Japanese. Spreecken displays these inner conflicts clearly. His longing for Hatsue is a strong thread throughout the play. Leach makes a nice transition between the young girl Hatsue and the grown mother she becomes by the time of the trial. She, too, clearly conveys the conflict of feeling love for a forbidden man. However, she isn't given much time to turn from being committed to Ishmael to deciding he never was the right man for her. It seems kind of sudden. The set, by Corey Eriksen, worked extremely well for the varied landscape and settings in the play. Surrounding the main stage, made to look like a wooden dock area, is a large perimeter of bark and sand. It is used to denote both the strawberry fields and the fields of war. Costumes by Doris Black were understated and seemed spot on, historically. Also, the backdrop of cedars, sometimes blurred by snow, was quite beautiful, and a contemplative counterpoint to the sometimes nasty business downstage. Like Mockingbird, Cedars points to recent history and shows us how far we have to travel toward understanding and integration. There are many aspects of World War II that were so horrific, many want to make sure it "never happens again." But, how vigilant will we be, and will we notice it in time to stop it? For more information, go to www.book-it.org or call (206) 216-0833. Emails commenting on reviews go to sgncritic@gmail.com. |
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