Reviewed by Judy Richter
"Concerning Strange
Devices From the Distant West," the Naomi Iizuka drama being given its world
premiere by Berkeley Repertory Theatre, refers to cameras. Specifically, it refers to
the early cameras that were used to photograph people and scenes in Japan after
that country began to end its isolation from the rest of the world. Although
the title implies that cameras were strange to the Japanese, the play is more
concerned with how Westerners such as the English and Americans, were
fascinated by the photographs coming from Japan in the later 19th century.
Consequently, some photographers made a lucrative business of setting up
photographs and selling them to Westerners.
Running
about 90 minutes without intermission, the play opens with a primly dressed Englishwoman,
Isabel Hewlett (Kate Eastwood Norris), complete with parasol (costumes by Annie Smart), talking about how she was
stirred by the photo of a nearly naked, extensively tattooed man that she had
found locked in a box in her father's desk when she was a girl. Now she's in
Japan with her businessman husband, Edmund (Danny Wolohan), and has gone to the studio of
well-known photographer Andrew Farsari (Bruce McKenzie). When she arrives unannounced,
he's photographing a tattooed young man (Johnny Wu) like the one she had seen in
her father's photo. As Isabel and the abrasive Andrew talk, he adjusts his
subject's pose as if the young man were an object, not a person. Later, her
husband visits the photographer to gain some insight into why his wife has disappeared.
The
setting shifts to a bar in 21st century Tokyo (sets by Mimi Lien with lighting by Alexander V.
Nichols, sound
by Bray Poor and
videos and projections by Leah Gelpe). That's where an American professor of art history,
Dmitri Mendelssohn (McKenzie), is talking with a young Japanese woman, Kiku (Teresa
Avia Lim). She
is to serve as his interpreter when he meets with a Japanese entrepreneur, Hiro
(Wu), from whom he wants to buy some Farsari photos. This bar scene is
interminable, filled with boozy talk as Dmitri tries to flirt with the woman.
In
subsequent scenes, we learn a little more about the characters, and there are
some hints about what might have happened more than a century ago. Still, some
puzzles remain, apparently on purpose, but there's not much satisfaction. And
since the characters aren't particularly likable, it's hard to care much about
them or what may or may not have happened to them. Part of this may lie with
the play itself and part of it with Les Waters' direction, which seems to keep
a distance between the characters themselves as well as the characters and
audience.
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