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Wednesday, June 7, 2017

BY MICHAEL ROSEN | SENIOR STAFF LAST UPDATED MARCH 10, 2014

THEATER SUNDAY, MARCH 9, 2014

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Navigating post­war burdens with deftness in ‘Blues’

After the War Blues

It had certainly been a long, long time since Chet Monkawa

actually felt lucky. At a lottery earlier that day, he and Earl

Worthing — a resident from the San Francisco boarding house

Monkawa runs —  entered a raffle for a modern American

phenomenon: a brand-new television. Miraculously, they had

won, but not without some help. Because of their ethnicities —

Monkawa being Japanese and Worthing being black — the raffle

liaison refused to sell them a ticket. An Italian was game to act as

their surrogate, and soon Monkawa, Worthing and the other half-

dozen residents of the boarding house were excitedly crowded

around the tiny little box, ready to watch the future unfold.

The year is 1948, and the second scene in the UC Berkeley

Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies’

beautifully staged and impressively acted show “After The War

Blues” — written by Philip Kan Gotanda and performed at

Zellerbach Playhouse — makes it clear the United States is doing

its best to move on from World War II and into a tantalizing

tomorrow. It also shows the process isn’t going so smoothly. The

scars from the war remain in the national consciousness.

Monkawa, a second-generation Japanese American, faces

discrimination daily. A visitor yells “Jap” in his face. Monkawa

never really feels at home.

The difficulties of life as an outsider — which, to some extent,

describes every resident of Monkawa’s boarding house — in

postwar America comprise much of the first act of the show. Olga

(Schuyler Girion), a first-generation Russian immigrant, struggles

to find her place in a not-so-dreamy America. Mr. Oji (Tony Jin),

a Japanese accountant, cannot find a woman that will take him

seriously.

Eventually, Olga and Mr. Oji become good friends and help

ameliorate each other’s problems. Jin and Girion’s shared scenes

are some of the show’s lightest and funniest, but the underlying

idea — that one finds contentedness not from America the

country, but from those who live within it — is something the play

wrestles with throughout the second act.

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6/7/2017 Navigating post-war burdens with deftness in 'Blues' | The Daily Californian

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BareStage founder returns tocampus with one-man show

Jin and Girion are great as occasional comic relief, but the

strongest performances in the show come from Intae Kim and

Rodney Witherspoon, playing Monkawa and Worthing,

respectively. Kim is the steadying force of the show. He’s

burdened with both the most stage time and the widest range of

circumstances and handles the challenges with apparent ease.

Worthing booms and grins, injecting energy and life into every

scene he plays while also carrying a palpable sense of truth in his

heavier scenes. You can feel the blues in each of their characters,

even at their emotional highs.

The acting is strong, but what’s most impressive about “After The War Blues” is its visual elements.

Throughout the show, the main plotline ceases, and a singular trumpet player is given a spotlight at

the top of the enormous two-story set. Sometimes, he’s lit up in an eerie red light while a scat singer

stands on the lower level, crooning hauntingly from below. The last scene before the end of the first

act is the most noteworthy. It positions Monkawa center stage dancing with his lover, while two

other residents flank the couple, pensively staring out at the world wondering where to go next. The

blocking and the lighting meld into one another, painting a wonderfully melancholic image before

the lights rise up for intermission.

Wonderful melancholy permeates every aspect of the show, from the actions of the characters to the

arrangement of the living room. The script and direction are meticulously crafted, and the cadre of

student actors execute both to an admirable degree.

Contact Michael Rosen at mrosen@dailycal.org.

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