Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
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…
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. Read more…
Tracey Paleo – Gia On The Move
Where there’s tea, there’s hope in playwright Velina Hasu Houston’s story about five Japanese war brides living in Kansas with their GI husbands in the 1960s. A group of like women with no real “community”, Himiko Hamilton, Teruko MacKenzie, Atsuko Yamamoto, Setsuko Banks, and Chizuye Juarez are disconnected from each other and also from themselves. Read more…
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
It has been over 30 years since Velina Hasu Houston’s play Tea first premiered. The recent production by Hero Theatre on the stage of the Rosenthal Theater at Inner City Arts proved her writing and characters are as fresh and relevant today as they originally were. Read more…
Now running through May 15