Review:
Ballad of Yachiyo
by Philip Kan Gotanda
Public Theater, NY, 11/97

"The play by Philip Kan Gotanda has been given a handsome production at the Joseph Papp Public Theater...But no matter how much you dress it up, this slight and overly somber piece only goes to show that old-fashioned melodrama is a pan-cultural phenomenon.

"Ballad of Yachiyo is meticulously cast and staged with precision...The production feels so authentic that it seems to have more weight than it otherwise might...

"Gotanda uses the story of Yachiyo's obsession with Hiro as the excuse for an examination of the folkways of the Japanese exiles, including members of his own family, who settled on Kauai. (The broader and perhaps more intriguing questions about what sent these people on their journeys are only peripherally addressed.)

"Many of the customs are painstakingly outlined, as in the demonstrations of rituals of tea presentation and puppetry. Others, like the process of pottery making, are explained in lugubrious detail. It occurs sometime after the kiln has been fired up that the ceramics lesson is the filler in a fairly silly narrative.

"No tasteful bit of embroidery, however, has been overlooked in the ambitious staging by Ms. Ott. Loy Arcenas' set, a realistic rendering of a lanai, evocatively incorporates both tropical and Japanese influences. And the supporting actors breathe life into what might have been an ensemble of decorative extras. Still, Ballad of Yachiyo seems little more than a romance-novelish story of love among the pineapples."

Peter Marks, NY Times

Complete review can be read at the NY Times web site: www.nytimes.com

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