Velina Hasu Houston’s play “Tea” begins with the loss of life of a personality. After Himiko Hamilton, a Japanese girl dwelling inFt. Riley, Kan., takes her personal life, 4 of her associates, who belong to the sameBuddhist church, collect to wash her home. Over cups of tea, they reminisce concerning the previous and mourn Himiko’s loss of life. “There’s a way of guilt and disgrace and anger,” says Hua Lee, one of many actors who performs Atsuko, the top of the church. “We’re looking for a strategy to honor her spirit.”
The chums recall how they met their American husbands throughout america’ occupation of Japan after World Warfare II, and the variations they needed to make after shifting. They ask themselves if they might have accomplished extra for Himiko.
The play’s framework — centered on a bunch of girls having tea collectively — was impressed by Houston’s personal upbringing in Kansas. Her mom, Setsuko Takechi, a Japanese battle bride just like the 5 characters in “Tea,” gathered for tea as soon as a month together with her Japanese associates. As a younger girl, Houston would assist refresh their cups whereas absorbing their tales.
Since its debut at Manhattan’s Theatre Membership in 1987, “Tea” has been produced around the globe. Houston weaves into her play the experiences of her mom and different Japanese ladies who married American army personnel and immigrated to america through the Fifties. Houston’s dad and mom met when her father, Lemo Houston, an African American soldier, was stationed in Japan after WWII. Following a protracted courtship, Houston and Takechi bought married — regardless of each households’ robust disapproval of the connection.
L.A.’s Hero Theatre, which places on productions at Rosenthal Theater at Internal-Metropolis Arts, initially deliberate to stage “Tea” two years in the past earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered theaters all through the town. The theater has returned with its personal spin on Houston’s work. Now displaying by way of Could 15, Hero’s staging of “Tea,” directed by Rebecca Put on, options two all-Asian casts.
It’s an particularly well timed have a look at racism, together with that which might manifest inside communities of coloration. “It’s at all times been sadly ironic to me that BIPOC folks confront racism from whites, however seldom confront the racism that they train upon one another in myriad methods,” Houston says. “As somebody who's each Asian and Black, I'm shocked by the quantity of anti-Blackness I encounter within the Asian and Asian American communities.”
In 1979, Houston moved to Southern California to pursue an MFA in playwriting, screenwriting and English at UCLA. She later earned a PhD in important research at USC, the place she at present teaches. Whereas pursuing her MFA Houston started engaged on “Tea,” her third play. After workshopping it with the Asian American Theatre Firm in San Francisco, she launched it on the East Coast just a few years later.
To analysis the play, Houston traveled again to Kansas, the place she and her mom interviewed dozens of Japanese battle brides. Takechi’s presence, coupled with the truth that she spoke Japanese, helped the ladies really feel extra comfy talking about their experiences. Over the course of practically 50 interviews, the younger playwright developed a deeper understanding of what these ladies had gone by way of.
She believes her mom drew a lot from the expertise as nicely. “I feel it was fairly illuminating for [her] to see Japanese ladies dwelling in cities the place they have been the one nonwhite particular person,” Houston says. “And likewise listening to completely different tales of how folks had come to fulfill their American husbands and transfer to america and construct a life for themselves.
“They have been very emotional interviews, as a result of the ladies have been telling their tales absolutely for the primary time. Generally their youngsters sat in, and it was the primary time they'd heard the tales about their mom’s historical past.”
Among the ladies spoke about grappling with the trauma of home abuse, a theme that additionally emerges in “Tea.”
“I used to be shocked by a few of the issues that they advised me,” Houston says. “Most likely the factor that almost all disturbed me was when a girl advised me that her husband bit off a part of her lip. I simply have by no means forgotten that.”
Two weeks after finishing the interviews, she completed the primary draft of “Tea.”
The play’s 5 characters — Atsuko, Chizuye, Himiko, Setsuko and Teruko — have been impressed by the ladies Houston interviewed. “Tea” strikes forwards and backwards in time, with Himiko displaying up as a spirit or ghostly presence, typically becoming a member of within the dialog as if she have been nonetheless alive. Ghost characters typically seem in Houston’s performs; she sees them as a component influenced by the Japanese tales, fairy tales and legends her mom advised her rising up.
After its 1987 debut, “Tea” was staged by San Diego’s Outdated Globe the next yr. In 1989, actress Olympia Dukakis offered it on the Complete Theater Firm in Montclair, N.J. Dukakis invited the playwright to stay together with her and her household throughout rehearsals. Houston was there for eight weeks, and she or he and Dukakis grew to become lifelong associates. “Her mom was an immigrant from Greece,” says Houston. “So there was this understanding of the wrestle that immigrants undergo to discover a place for themselves on this nation.” She says that Dukakis additionally inspired her to write down what she actually needed to, and never give in to business pressures.
Elisa Bocanegra, the founder and creative director of Hero Theatre, additionally considers Dukakis a mentor. They met in 2011, when the 2 acted collectively within the Roundabout Theatre’s manufacturing of “The Milk Prepare Doesn’t Cease Right here Anymore” in New York Metropolis. Bocanegra, who's Latina, felt discouraged concerning the restricted scope of roles she was being supplied. Dukakis inspired the performer to start out her personal theater firm. Bocanegra based Hero later that yr and ultimately moved it to Los Angeles.
“Tea” is particularly poignant for Bocanegra, because it reminds her “a lot of my mother and aunts who got here from Puerto Rico,” she says.“They themselves have been additionally married to troopers and got here to america.” Bocanegra says she had at all times sensed “a loneliness and a disappointment that they'd, having left their very own nation and being thought of an ‘different’ in America.”
The play options two casts, with one performing within the night and the opposite throughout daytime exhibits. They did this for “a few causes,” says director Put on. “Initially, there’s a lot unbelievable expertise on the market, and we actually needed to provide alternatives to all of the actresses that we may.”
In addition they needed to provide the actors alternatives to tackle different jobs if the event arose. “As different theater corporations have acknowledged in Los Angeles,” says Put on, “there’s at all times a navigation for performers when it comes to determining when to do theater and when to do tv and movie. So this sort of framework offers the assist in order that performers can truly do each as needed.”
Put on additionally acknowledges that “Tea” is arriving at a time when anti-Asian sentiments and hate crimes are on the rise in america. “At instances, we’re inviting the viewers in, after which at different factors, we’re truly confronting them,” she says. “Taking part in between these impulses truly formed each a part of the present, from the staging to the best way we dealt with accents to the sound.”
The sound design and unique music by Dean Harada additionally mirror influences from Japanese ghost tales, Put on notes. Within the opening scene, Himiko delivers a monologue, calling out to her lifeless husband, daughter and mom, earlier than she takes her life offstage. The music underscoring the monologue is each haunting and jarring, and it mixes in sounds from conventional Japanese theater like picket clappers and samisen, a standard stringed instrument.
The actors have discovered private resonance within the play in numerous methods. Tomoko Karina, one of many actors enjoying Himiko, was born in Japan and immigrated to america as a younger grownup. For her, it’s essential that Houston’s play dismantles racist stereotypes about Japanese ladies as a monolith, as a substitute giving the characters layered and nuanced tales. “Warfare brides weren't simply prostitutes and bar women,” Karina says. “Which I even thought. However that's not true.”
Lee, whose character is strong-willed and feels superior to the others, first encountered “Tea” whereas finding out theater at UC Davis. Lee cherished it a lot that she wrote an essay about it. “If there’s any play I might have produced, it could be this one,” she says. “Velina’s writing is simply so uncooked and sincere. She’s unapologetic in her quest to discover the human expertise and to place that on the market.”
“A play like that is so timeless. It was related then, and it’s nonetheless related now.”
'Tea'
The place: Rosenthal Theater at Internal-Metropolis Arts, 720 Kohler St., Los Angeles.
When: 8 p.m.Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 2, 7 and eight p.m. Sundays. $35. By Could 21.
Information:herotheatre.org/tea.html
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