Reviews for
Ballad of Yachiyo
Seattle Repertory Theatre
February 1997

"Subtly evoking the artful films of Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, Ott's vivid mounting of the script floats before one's eyes like a misty dream. A seamless montage of sliding bamboo screens and evocative back projections, tea ceremonies and ceramicsmaking rituals, kimono-clad human figures and large-scale Bunraku puppets glide in and out of view, in a composition that evolves with precise, sensuous inevitability.

"Ott and her exceptional design team-scenic artist Loy Arcenas, costumer Lydia Tanji, lighting designer Peter Maradudin, puppet artist Bruce Schwartz and composer Dan Kuramoto-have done more here than wrap up Ballad of Yachiyo in Japanese trimmings and plunk it on sandy Hawaiian clay. They have amplified Gotanda's slender and diffuse script, giving it a poetic indelibility and aesthetic unity a more realistic rendering would not have achieved.

"Though not Gotanda's most cohesive play, Ballad of Yachiyo does contain passages of striking Iyricism and keen humor. And its simple, tragic story has an archetypal ring...such images can haunt you, well after the curtain rings down."

Misha Berson, Seattle Times

"...in a real ballad, the plunka-plunka-plunka literary and musical form filters out unbearable pain. Not so in Ballad of Yachiyo, a tragedy by Philip Kan Gotanda playing at the Seattle Repertory Theatre.

"Gotanda's subject is worthy of traditional treatment. Like a l9th century Mexican corrido or a 14th century Scottish lament, Ballad of Yachiyo combines crushing circumstance, perverse fatality and doomed heroism in a grim and gripping narrative.

"And- Gotanda's artistry is unabashedly beautiful. His writing plays on all the senses to create a vivid impression of rural life on Kauai, Hawaii, in 1919. Costumes by Lydia Tanji, lighting by Peter Maradudin, music by Dan Kuramoto and puppets by Bruce Schwartz add sharp details...Director Sharon Ott allows the ballad to amble innocently at first gathering bits of sinister omen like tiny shadows in a sunny picture. Eventually the shadows lengthen and take over. By the time the show is over, all the artistry and stylization of the play and the production lose their distancing effect. Yachiyo's tragic fate is genuinely troubling, agonizing really."

Joe Adcock, Seattle PI

"When you take a tired, old story and try to fashion something fresh and distinct, you risk falling on your face. Philip Gotanda takes that risk in Ballad ol Yachiyo...Based on personal family history, the story takes place in 1919 in Hawaii, where Asian immigrants work on cane plantations and live a serf-like existence.

"The "Cho-Cho San" syndrome, is one which has cursed Asian womanhood for a century. Its influence so pervades western thought, it has become part of folklore...So, when you have a story with no suspense, what can you do?

"...Gotanda is successful in developing the possibilities of such an elemental theme...Much more than simply dialogue with staging, Yachiyo is a full theatrical experience.Yachiyo is a production that offers humor and pathos while staying true to its historic backdrop.

"Yachio shows Gotanda at his finest."

Chizu Omori, NW Asian Weekly

"Given the slim plot, Gotanda labors mightily to stretch and pad his tale of passion and death by twisting the time scheme, adding internal monologues, even working in a little bit of labor unrest, a lot of talk about the aesthetics of pottery, and a traditional Japanese story about a woman who dies for love acted out by Bunraku puppets.

"...There's a wistful appeal to this Madame Butterfly-like image, of a fragile beauty who wastes away like a wilting flower when love is withdrawn. Unfortunately, he backs up a truckload of Western psychoanalytical insight and theatrical tricks ...But far too often the language sounds like a middle-aged male playwright trying to recreate the diary entries of a teenage girl. For a play about passion, Yachiyo is exceptionally unmoving...Only Sab Shimono, wreathed in his own aura of relaxed implacity, rises above the material to give a remarkably understated performance as Yachiyo's father.

John Longenbaugh, Seattle Weekly

"MISTAKE NUMBER ONE: Write a play with eight interesting characters and one boring one. Make the boring one the main character, and put her in every scene. Mistake Number Two: Bring a boring ingenue in from out-of-town to play this role with a one-note teenage hopefulness...Mistake Number Three: Play up the fact that this show is set deep inside a first-generation immigrant world, then offer nothing more than some standard fear of shaming your family and a highly stylized tea service for cross-culturality. Mistake Number Four: Place this bland romantic drama on a set that outperforms everyone onstage...

"Sucess Number One: Cast Emily Kuroda from San Francisco as the passive-aggressive jealous wife of the studly Japanese potter....Success Number Two: The puppets! The puppets! Bruce Schwartz's Ban Raku puppets are beautifully expressive, and the four-person team of Koken puppeteers who operate them are flawless, disappearing into the backgroumd while lettmg their inanimate puppets soar....Success NumberThree: Place this bland romantic drama on Loy Arcenas' incredible set. Okay, it was also a mistake in the long run, but damn that set was impressive!

"Perhaps Gotanda had too much respect for his deceased aunt to give her character anything darlc or dirty to play against. Perhaps she really was a simple, pure, boring 16-year-old. Perhaps he should have written a play about someone else...Adequately performed and blandly written, but beautifully designed, this production is a solid but artistically unambitious debut for Ms. Ott."

Matthew Richter, The Stranger

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