As
its title suggests, Naomi Iizuka’s 36 Views, currently playing at Geva
Theatre Center, is a complex, richly layered drama.Actually,
Iizuka’s title comes from the name of the early 19th-century wood-block prints
of Mt. Fuji by the Japanese artist Hokusai. And Iizuka segments her play into
36 varying scenes, separated by the sound of striking wood blocks.
The mysterious variations of her
play are also reflected in the reference itself. Hokusai was only one of the
names that artist used; he actually made more than 36 illustrations of Mt.
Fuji; and he apparently altered the actual size and position of the mountain in
his various “Views.”
Iizuka’s 36 Views deals with questions of
authenticity: real vs. fake art, real vs. fake love. It is also about
originality and the interplay between different cultures.
The problem is
that almost none of this cleverly developed interplay of themes and ideas is
remotely compelling dramatically. We find out far too early the answer to the
central issue — whether a potentially priceless, newly-found Japanese
pillow-book, which is seemingly more than a thousand years old, is genuine. And
the build-up isn’t worth it for the final revelations: the actual source of
superstar art collector Darius Wheeler’s fortune, and the identity of a
mysterious artist, who doesn’t show up for an exhibit’s opening, but does show
up for its closing.
Ironically, what
really does have dramatic force is the play’s most obvious, trite, and
intellectually unchallenging element — the failed romance between Wheeler, a
Caucasian, and Setsuko Hearn, the beautiful and brilliant Asian scholar who
dazzles him.
At first, Harry
Carnahan’s Wheeler — a macho, rich, white adventurer who discovers art
treasures in the remote, perilous Far East — is just sufficiently
stereotypical to be intriguing, while raising our suspicions. But he and
beautiful Maile Holck, as the poised, wary Setsuko, generate sufficient onstage
chemistry to make their romantic attraction palpable and involving.
Unfortunately, Iizuka shows no such skill in getting us engrossed in the more
distinctive elements of her script.
Credit Daniel
Ostling’s set pieces, Lydia Tangi’s costumes, and Mary Louise Geiger’s lighting
designs with providing Geva’s production a handsome suggestion of the play’s
central image — the beauty of Asian art.
Chay Yew is noted
for his powerful ability to hold and fascinate an audience as a playwright. As
director, he does what he can to flesh out Iizuka’s ideas. Adapting minimalist
Asian theater traditions to modern staging, Yew uses a bare stage, upon which the
five actors are always visible, when not exiting to change costumes. His
emblematic blocking makes use of ingenious lighting effects and simple
set-pieces. The script
requires a few beautiful examples of Asian artwork and some lovely traditional
costumes, including elaborate kimonos and masks to be peeled off in a ritual
that will expose surprising identities underneath. But Yew has eliminated the
nudity and elaborate set changes which this play got in earlier productions,
and I’m not sure that it doesn’t need every such gimmick it can get.
Carnahan and
Holck command the most interest, if only because their characters’ interaction
is the only element of the script that comes to life with flesh-and-blood
vivacity. But the rest of the skilled cast is also commanding, even when their
roles aren’t. I’d give the rather wooden Elizabeth Adwin the benefit of the
doubt, because her thin role as a journalist of sorts may be unavoidably smug
as written. Melody Butiu achieves a nice transition from sullen servant to
spirited artist. Gregory Patrick Jackson brings subtlety and a winsome appeal
to the several transitions he has to negotiate as Wheeler’s nerdy, brilliant
assistant. And Alan Nebelthau plays a senior art professor with persuasive
authority.
I can understand
Geva’s continuing connection with the brilliant Iizuka, giving her challenging
works early readings and stagings here. They are rich in contexts and concepts.
But I begin to doubt whether she is really a playwright who can make an audience in a theater give a damn about
them.
36 Views,by
Naomi Iizuka, directed by Chay Yew, plays at Geva Theatre Center, 75 Woodbury
Boulevard, through Sunday, March 23. Performances are Tuesdays-Fridays at 8
p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
(special matinee performance on Wednesday, March 19, at 2 p.m.) Tix:
$12:50-$46.50. 232-4382, www.gevatheatre.org.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2003.
