31 Asian American Plays in 31 Days
#2 SONG FOR A NISEI FISHERMAN, by Philip Kan Gotanda
This classic play delves into the search of a Japanese American man to understand his life as he recalls his journey from childhood to retirement. At once both deeply personal and truly universal, this play reflects the beauty and pain of growing up Japanese American in the 20th Century.
Premiered 1980, Stanford Asian American Theater Project, directed by David Hwang, featuring David Pating, Lisa Pan, Angela Goldman, Loren Fong, Stacy Azama (and one or two others I’ve forgotten). Oh, and tech direction and lighting design by…me.
David and Phil are probably two of the large figures in the 2nd wave of Asian American theatre creators, where the need to define identity has been established and receded
into subtext. The pathways have shifted from the brain to the heart, where the artistry is more evocative than ideological. This play, besides being a watermark in my own evolution, is a crest of a moodier, more emotive phase in the field, and still holds up today (though any production will now rely on dramaturgical research than claiming a common cultural memory).
No production stills, far as I can tell, are around….but I still have a T-shirt from the production….and as a bonus, the poster from the Asian American Theater Company production that quickly followed (featuring Marc Hayashi…).
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