Unfortunately, forces of nature can transform the ocean into an unstoppable weapon of terror and death. While such historic maritime disasters as the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and the SS Andrea Doria in 1956 took place in relatively calm seas, the August 4, 1991 sinking of the MTS Oceanos after it was hit with a series of freak waves off the coast of South Africa demonstrated how vulnerable oceangoing vessels are when caught in angry seas.
Following the 9.0 Tohoko earthquake on March 11, 2011, the destructive power of the tsunami that hit the coastal town of Ōkuma, Fukushima was witnessed worldwide.
As they watched the devastation unfolding before their eyes, some people may have remembered the old saying "Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink!"
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The above-referenced quote comes from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads) that describes a voyage diverted to the Antarctic Ocean, where it becomes trapped in an ice jam. A curious albatross leads the crew out of danger as they navigate their ship through the ice, but is downed by a sailor who kills it with his crossbow. After the south wind pushes the ship north toward the Equator, the crew is becalmed under a blazing sun. |
| Earl Paus as The Pilot's Boy in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
Directed by Jim Cave and Delia MacDougall, Word For Word is currently presenting a fully-staged production of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Though the running time is only an hour, it is one of the most satisfying dramatic works to be seen this month in the Bay area. As MacDougall explains:
“In Coleridge’s poem, the thoughtless killing of the great sea bird puts in motion not only a terrible revenge by the natural and supernatural worlds, but also the power of the working of the natural world to bring about a spiritual reunion of man and nature. No motivation for this act is ever explored or offered within the text; it remains simply a thoughtless act of dreadful consequence -- a symbol for the effect man has had on the natural world. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner is a wandering soul who has arrived in this moment to remind us of our forgotten past in order to fortify ourselves to face our future with an understanding that man and nature are each other’s destiny. The Moon’s beams gently guide the Mariner to see with new eyes. The Sun’s dawn chorus tune his ears to a universal harmony. He returns to the world of man with a new purpose.”
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| Charles Shaw Robinson stars as the Ancient Mariner in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
“Two hundred years before modern Western notions of culture’s eco-spirituality and deep ecology, there was Coleridge’s philosophy of ‘One Life.’ For Coleridge, Western civilization had forgotten its origin story related in Genesis and needed to be reminded that Man was not God’s singular creation. The seven days of creation included the sky and the waters, the sun and moon, the birds of the air and the ‘crawling living creatures with which the water teems.’ There is nothing more important to our future than to find the fortitude to face the climate crisis, to spread a message of urgency, and to join with those working to create meaningful change. Modern human beings are leaves that have forgotten they are part of a tree.”
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| Robert Ernst, Patricia Silver, and Leontyne Mbele-Mbong in a scene from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
Thanks to projections designed by Theodore J. H. Hulsker, video by
Hana Kim, and some truly impressive sound design by Matt Stines, this production envelops its audience in an other-worldly soundscape and seascape that is visually enriched by the ship-like set designed by Oliver DiCicco and Colm McNally, costumes by Nikki Anderson-Joy, lighting by Ray Oppenheimer, and choreography by Nol Simonse.
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| Lucas Brandt as The Young Mariner in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
Word for Word's tightly-knit ensemble consists of a seagoing chorus tackling the roles of The Ancient Mariner (Charles Shaw Robinson), The Young Mariner (Lucas Brandt), The Helmsman (Robert Ernst), and a crew member (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong). Nathaniel Andalis appears briefly as The Pilot, with Earl Paus as The Pilot's Boy. Brandt doubles as The Wedding Guest to whom The Ancient Mariner tells his story.
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| Darryl V. Jones as The Sun in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
Supernatural forces are embodied by Darryl V. Jones (doubling as The Sun and A Hermit), Patricia Silver (doubling as The Moon and Life-in-Death), and Randall Wong, who doubles as The Polar Spirit and Death.
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| Randall Wong as The Polar Spirit in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
With its goal of telling great -- and often short stories (whether they be classic or contemporary fiction) "with elegant theatricality," this production by Word For Word aims high and achieves a stunning level of artistic success. Performances of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner continue through October 12 at Z Space (click here for tickets).
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| Robert Ernst as the Helmsman in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Photo by: Hillary Goidel) |
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Berkeley Repertory Theatre launched its 2019-2020 season (the first under the leadership of its new Artistic Director, Johanna Pfaelzer) with the American premiere of The Great Wave, a combination family drama and political thriller which takes place on opposite shores of the Sea of Japan. As the play begins, sound designer Bray Poor and video designer Tara Knight conjure up the fury of a fearsome storm lashing a coastal town on the western shores of Japan in 1979.Three students come barging into the kitchen of a small home. The oldest is Reiko (Yurié Collins), thought to be the smartest girl at school by her study partner, Tetsuo (Julian Cihi). They are joined by Reiko's younger sister, Hanako (Jo Mei), who is wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and makes no bones about the fact that Reiko is the smarter of the two daughters. As they dry off, the girls' mother, Etsuko (Sharon Omi), returns home briefly from her shift as a waitress.
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| Yurié Collins (Reiko), Julian Cihi (Tetsuo), and Jo Mei (Hanako) in a scene from The Great Wave (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
As the storm continues and the three teenagers grow restless, Tetsuo suggests they go down to the beach to watch the waves hitting the shore. Reiko refuses to abandon her studies, but the rebellious Hanako follows Tetsuo out the door. When Tetsuo returns without Hanako, something is obviously wrong. Apparently, Tetsuo went home instead of going to the beach. As she watched from above, Reiko thought she saw some men on the beach, but couldn't be sure because of the wind and rain.
Written by Francis Turnly and directed by Mark Wing-Davey, The Great Wave rests on a political history that may not be well-known to Westerners. As the playwright explains:
“In Japanese schools, people don’t talk a lot about certain things Japan did during World War II and the occupation of Korea. Even today, a lot of Japanese people don’t actually know what took place; they just learned the edited version. In North Korea, the people aren’t told the exact truth about history either, so there are parallels between both countries not telling their people everything.”
“I wanted to have the sea onstage as the personification of the way the two families are affected by political waves as well as literal waves. The actual full title of the woodblock print that inspired me to write the play is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, which was the original title of the play until a Japanese person pointed out to me that Kanagawa isn’t actually opposite North Korea. So the title had to change slightly.”
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| Jo Mei stars as Hanako in The Great Wave (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
As Reiko, Tetsuo, and Etsuko continue to search for Hanako, they keep failing to find any clues to what might have happened. Takeshi (David Shih), a local detective, is sympathetic to their plight but works in a severely understaffed police department and eventually must move on to more pressing cases. The family's attempts to get help from a bureaucrat named Jiro (Paul Nakauchi) mysteriously keep getting stonewalled. Meanwhile, Hanako's desperate mother keeps setting bottles adrift that contain a picture of her daughter along with a message from her family.
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| Sharon Omi as Etsuko in The Great Wave (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
When the audience next sees Hanako, she is being brought into an interrogation room in North Korea where a military official (Paul Juhn) and a young woman named Jung Sun (Cindy Im) are eager to "re-educate" her by transforming Hanako into a loyal follower of Kim Il-Sung who will do anything to please the country's "Dear Leader." Unbeknownst to their captive, they have a clear ulterior motive: to make Hanako teach Jung Sun how to act as a typical Japanese woman.
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| Joe Mei (Hanako) and Paul Juhn (Official) in a scene from The Great Wave (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Over the next two decades Hanako becomes fully indoctrinated into North Korea's culture which, in many ways, operates on a system of punishment and reward typical of life in an authoritarian state. Somehow, she manages to retain a memory of her Japanese identity while understanding that merely hinting at it could have deadly results.
Eventually, Jung Sun reaches an acceptable level of impersonating a Japanese woman and graduates from Hanako's tutelage. Cheated out of Korea's promise to return her to her family, Hanako is subsequently forced into an arranged marriage with Kum-Chol (Stephen Hu), a weak Korean man who spent years in re-education camps and still bears the guilt of betraying his family to the authorities. Hanako eventually gives birth to a daughter (Grace Chan Ng), whom she names Hana.
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| Jo Mei (Hanako) and Stephen Hu (Kum-Chol) in a scene from The Great Wave (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
By this time, Tetsuo has become an investigative journalist working at a major Japanese newspaper whose research has revealed a series of mysterious "disappearances" similar to Hanako's. They all seem to follow a pattern, leading Tetsuo to think Hanako may have been abducted by North Koreans. Following the death of North Korea's "Dear Leader" (and with famine ravaging North Korea's population), Jiro visits Etsuko's family with an important message.
With scenery designed by Chika Shimizu, costumes by Meg Neville, and lighting by Lap Chi Chu, much of The Great Wave is staged in oppressive rooms that reflect the depressing grey architecture found in North Korea. While there is a tremendous amount of narrative exposition to be delivered across the footlights, the dramatic payoff at the end of the evening brings the play to a bittersweet conclusion.
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| Jo Mei stars as Hanako in The Great Wave (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Jo Mei gives a breathtaking performance as Hanako, with Sharon Omi delivering some extremely poignant moments as her grieving mother. However, after leaving the theatre, I realized that (in addition to Turnly's complex narrative about a Japanese family's loss and the drabness of life under an authoritarian regime) The Great Wave offers audiences an unexpected dividend: a devastating portrayal of what it is like for LGBT people who, fearing for their lives, must remain closeted and accept a life filled with self loathing and denial. Their sense of hopelessness, helplessness, disgrace, and dread is put onstage in all of its soul-crushing ugliness.
For those who find that analogy hard to accept, let me recommend a recent essay on ESPN.com entitled "How Olympian Gus Kenworthy landed his first Hollywood role, in 'American Horror Story, 1984.'" It's a real eye-opener.
Performances of The Great Wave continue through October 27 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (click here for tickets). Here's the trailer:
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