31 Asian American Plays in 31 Days
#11 GOLD WATCH by Momoko Iko
I consider this one of the two definitive camp plays in the canon. The domestic drama takes place in the Pacific Northwest between the fall of 1941 and the late spring of 1942. The play focuses on the Murakami family, an Issei/Nisei farm family with two children, ages fourteen and four, along with the Tanakas, who run a store and have a nineteen year old Kibei son, as they prepare for their impending exclusion and incarceration. The main characters are based loosely on her parents.
GOLD WATCH, 1972, Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, directed by C. Bernard Jackson, with Shizuko Hoshi, Mimosa Iwamatsu, Richard Kato, Joanne Lee, Serena McCarthy, Irvin Paid, Bill Shinkai, Momo Yashima
(And….as a side note…this is one of the few shows where I was on stage as an actor, 1998, in the Northwest Asian American Theatre revival….”But what about the Buddhists?!”)
Photo, I think, taken from the PBS production.
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