‘Reunion’s Message Overwhelms the Drama

When a production has a half-hour introduction (in English and Mandarin Chinese) by members of one of the sponsoring organizations, you know this is a message play. Director and playwright Yoshiji Watanabe also included a “confession” in the program of “Reunion,” in a three-show run that ended Wednesday at the David Henry Hwang Theater, in case the message wasn’t clear enough.

Sponsored by the Alliance for Preserving the Truth of the Sino-Japanese War and the Hwayi Performing Group and the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia, this play is political in bold, screaming capital letters. According to Watanabe, the Japanese Imperial Army didn’t just lack respect for other Asians in its colonial campaigns. It also exploited fellow Japanese. During the last days of World War II, the Japanese military deserted the Japanese colonists. Although the vengeful locals persecuted them, these Japanese often eventually acculturated into the local villages. Such was the case of Haru (Kasuko Yokoi), the first wife of Shinzo (Eiji Kakutani). Believing her dead, Shinzo remarried but is now widowed. Haru’s reappearance disturbs Shinzo’s adult son (Watanabe), who now contemplates his father’s wartime past in Manchuria.

Watanabe draws heavily from Japanese miniseries melodrama, but his somber pace is exceedingly ponderous. There are so many long pauses that they aren’t pregnant. They are mummified. The play doesn’t build to one climax with a resolution, but settles for an epilogue.

The English translations are sometimes awkward. This play’s North American tour is meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and will stop in Toronto, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York.

There’s a lot of truth and sincerity inspired by his Watanabe’s father’s role in the Manchurian campaign. But the piece doesn’t effectively convey its motto: We may forgive, but we must not forget. Instead, this Imagine 21 production is like a long, ritualistic ceremony that one doesn’t enjoy or find particularly mentally stimulating, but one simply endures.