Tea (Velina Hasu Houston)
Not too long ago I sat in a strange church listening to old friends eulogize an old friend. I hadn’t spoken to Trey in over a decade, and I don’t know if anyone else saw his suicide coming, but I definitely didn’t, and couldn’t have, and I don’t know how much I would have done something had I noticed anything. But I was there, because I felt I had to be, for my first friend who I had died, for the loss of a relationship that used to mean something to me. After the service I quickly left, even understanding how much that loss affected to me I couldn’t bare to try to reconnect with the others who I hadn’t spoken to in just as long.
In Tea four naturalized American women from Japan come to take tea in remembrance of Himiko, the first one of them who had died. The first of the WWII war brides, the first of a group of people forced by their new country to live close to each other, even though they didn’t particularly like each other.
All five of the women tell us their lives over tea: where they came from in Japan, how they met their husbands, how their husbands came to America, how their children are, and how they ignore each other. They have varying levels of comfort with being American, some hold on tightly to their heritage, while some can’t wait to be rid of it: either out of joy or as a defense against the racism they face is hard to tell and an interesting question for a team to discover.
Himiko’s ghost lingers in her home as her not-friends speak of and to each other. They are together in a way they never have been before and likely don’t intend to be again.
This is a beautiful play with lots of laughs exploring an expat community not often spoken of, as they say in the play “when we die, no one will think there ever were Japanese in Kansas.” I regret missing the opportunity to see this show when it was in Houston a few years ago. I highly recommend it.
As a Producer
Besides the casting requirements largely keeping this out of serious consideration, this play is not tonally right for Pronoia at this time. Although the laughs are there, it is still tinged with too much of something, and I don’t know what it is.
As a Writer
If nothing else this play (published in 2007,) shows the effectiveness of standard forms of drama. Many modern plays jump quickly from scene to scene, trying to replicate cinema; many plays have quippy dialogue meant to be rattled off at high speeds; many plays want hundreds of characters or lots of non-diagetic imagery.
Tea is in one set (a tea room,) with five women who talk about their lives. They occasionally play someone else from their lives (notably their husbands and children,) and the ghost of Himiko talks to us throughout the show, but other than that the show is very traditional: a few characters, a conversation, a ritual. It reminds me that things don’t have to be big, loud, or punishingly innovative to have value or to touch the audience.
