By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Akiko (Anna Kim) waves knives at her daughter Beccah (Alissa Joy Lee), out of her belief that she is cutting away at demons, in "Comfort Woman."<
Play insightful to non-Koreans
By John Berger
Special to the Star-BulletinAN American missionary and the Imperial Japanese Army's sex slave system appear almost equally evil in Keith Kashiwada and John H.Y. Wat's theatrical adaptation of Nora Okja Keller's critically acclaimed novel, "Comfort Woman." The Kumu Kahua production is similar in concept and format to their highly successful adaptation of Lois-Ann Yamanaka's "Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers" last year. Much dialogue is word-for-word narrative from the book; the audience is told as much as it is shown. "Comfort Woman" is inherently pretty grim, but Kashiwada and Wat display their knack for comic counterpoint as well.
The key to their success in interpreting the novel as theater is double-casting the central roles of narrator/daughter Beccah Bradley and her Korean mother, Akiko. Michelle Kim makes her return to local theater as the adult Beccah; Alissa Joy Lee gives a stellar performance as young Beccah. Broadway veteran Anna Kim (not related to Michelle Kim) stars as adult Akiko and Kennly Asato as young Akiko. (All the Korean women in the brothel with young Akiko were assigned Japanese names; she was officially Akiko 41 and kept that name after her escape.)
Michelle Kim narrates. The other three women give memorable dramatic performances.
The story jumps through three generations of struggle and endurance. Akiko's mother (Valerie Falle) enters into an arranged marriage with Akiko's father after the man she loved is killed in an anti-Japanese demonstration in 1919. Akiko marries a lustful American missionary (David Starr), who finds it convenient to believe her when she tells him that she's 18. An opportunistic woman of dubious origins named Auntie Reno (Laura Baring) befriends the now-widowed Akiko and her daughter in Hawaii; she sees Akiko's loosely wrapped mental state as a meal ticket and promotes Akiko as a psychic.
Shieleen Inglesias makes her stage debut in multiple roles, primarily as the beautiful supernatural spirit, Induk. Antonio Anagaran Jr. is the key to most lighter moments and does a fine job in two comic roles.
Shown are the Japanese atrocities and the mental cruelty of the American missionary in belittling his wife's culture.
"Comfort Woman" will be of greatest interest to non-Koreans for its insights and images of traditional Korean beliefs regarding the spiritual ties that link the living and the dead.
Keller's novel relates considerably more of Akiko's sex-slave experiences than in Kashiwada and Wat's adaptation.
The notes in the playbill provide no information at all on the historical context: The Japanese armed forces maintained a network of "comfort station" brothels in virtually all Japanese-occupied areas of East Asia and the Pacific.
An estimated 100,000 women served the Japanese war effort as comfort women. Some 80 percent were Koreans.
What: "Comfort Woman"
