‘False Teeth’ Production Draws Author’s Ire : Playwright, Director in Dispute Over ‘False Teeth’ Production

After opening to generally negative reviews, director Robert Ito’s production of Hiroshi Kashiwagi’s play about life in a Japanese-American internment camp, “Laughter and False Teeth,” has received the biggest pan of all--from the playwright.

Kashiwagi wrote a letter that appeared in the Feb. 8 edition of the Rafu Shimpo, the largest Japanese-American daily newspaper in Los Angeles, describing himself as “sick” regarding his play, which had been so “cut and changed that it is hardly the play that I wrote.” Kashiwagi’s letter went on to complain that Ito and Richard France, then-East West Players literary manager, “made no attempt to confer with me about the play. . . . According to (Ito), it was (France) who did the rewrites and made the changes at his request. I wasn’t aware of these goings-on; the shock came when I saw the play.”

Ito and France dispute Kashiwagi’s claims. France, now at USC’s drama division, termed the charges as “absolute baloney.”

Among the alterations to his play, Kashiwagi cites the deletion of dialogue leading up to laugh lines; the deletion of a song, “Don’t Fence Me In,” called for in the stage directions; the removal of a speech based on an actual internment camp loyalty oath; and several directorial interpretations he objects to.

The dispute centers on that most sacrosanct possession in the theater--the playwright’s legal and creative ownership of the text--as well as playwright participation during a play’s first staging, and closely follows the bitter departure of longtime East West artistic director, Mako, who resigned last month.

David Levine, speaking for the Dramatists Guild, would not comment on details of the dispute. He did note, however, that “it is impossible to ‘second-guess’ a playwright. What is, after all, a ‘minor change’? What applies in the theater is that not a comma, not one, is changed without playwright’s approval.”

Kashiwagi could take the dispute to the Guild, which might then issue a cease and desist letter to East West to shut the production down. But the playwright says that he is not going to pursue the matter. He acknowledges that a cycle of poor communication only led to a worse cycle, and that East West is right to complain that it was bad form to carry his protests into a public newspaper, rather than take them up with management.

He went public, Kashiwagi concluded, because “I was so angry.”

Problems began during the casting and rehearsal period in late December and early January, of which the San Francisco-based playwright/actor and those surrounding the production give different accounts. One problem all agree on is that Kashiwagi never attended rehearsals, an unusual situation.

In a phone call last week, Kashiwagi told The Times that after an unfruitful discussion with Ito, who requested several “major” changes Kashiwagi wouldn’t agree to, the playwright received a call from France. “He convinced me,” said Kashiwagi, “to go along with two major changes,” which involved inserting speeches (one of which, with Kashiwagi’s approval, was taken from France’s own play, “Station J”) and deleting a series of scenes showing the involvement of a boy and girl outside of the camp.

Why didn’t he come to Los Angeles? “I would have willingly come to confer on changes, but I was never asked.” East West’s managing director Michele Garza and France heatedly deny this. Garza said that the theater has a policy of providing a stipend for out-of-town playwrights to cover travel and lodging expenses during pre-production. In a letter to the Rafu Shimpo responding to Kashiwagi’s charges, the theater claims that Kashiwagi was “given the opportunity . . . come to Los Angeles . . . which he declined.”

Kashiwagi said that he did not decline the theater’s offer, but waited for a return call from the theater’s staff regarding travel arrangements. The call, he says, never came.

Ito denies distorting the meaning of the play, saying he was frustrated in their early conversations that Kashiwagi “never gave me a sense of what the play was about.” When told that Kashiwagi had described the play to a reporter as being about how people living in confinement behave in aberrant and sometimes comic ways, Ito responded: “You got a better explanation out of him than I ever did. He couldn’t explain his intent, and I did the best with what I had. If we changed anything besides the two big sections, it was a few lines and words the actors had problems with.” As for shutting the play down, Ito said that was out of his control.