The Stratford Festival Theatre Review: Hiro Kanagawa’s Forgiveness
By Ross
With a tender ear for the pain of imprisonment and racial profiling, balanced with the virtue of Forgiveness, from any and all angles, the adaptation of the Canada Reads Award-winning bestselling memoir, “Forgiveness: A Gift From My Grandparents” by Mark Sakamoto (“Shizue’s Path“), intensely unpacks the horrific memory-tale of two very different souls traumatized by the Second World War, but also of the engaging time before and the complicated time thereafter. Adapted with clarity by Hiro Kanagawa (Indian Arm; The Tiger of Malaya) [who also portrayed two very different characters most beautifully], the two separated characters stand apart, breaking the forth wall with a fully developed landscape of memories, finding tender communion in their layered and paralleled stories that layered together, give structure and soul to one of the more darker chapters in this country’s history; one that we ceremonially lift up as strong minded heroism, while the other, we, as a society, attempt to divert our eyes out of an intense feeling of shame and discomfort, trying to maintain the nationalistic symbolic idea of the good, kind, and caring Canada, even when we know our history books doesn’t actually support that glorified ideal.
I once wrote about a similar formula in the captivating documentary “The Fruit Machine“, a historic unwrapping about the horrific treatment of the LGBTQ+ community in Canada during the Cold War, which is as striking and deeply disturbing to our sense of community and identity as this modern play, Forgiveness, getting an engaging and thought-provoking unwrapping at the Stratford Festival‘s beautiful Tom Patterson Theatre. Most of us like to view this liberal country, where I was born and raised, as advanced, particularly in terms of equality and a strong stance on human rights. But unfortunately, many such moments in our history slap that idea down quite harshly, and even I found myself dumbfounded when I tuned into TVO to watch the documentary, “The Fruit Machine,“ a few years back. It sucker-punched me, as I sat on the couch, thinking, alongside what the woman in the documentary was saying, “You can’t do this, this is Canada”, “and he looked me in the eye and said, we’re the military, we can do what we want.”
This line is almost repeated verbatim in the complex undertaking that is Forgiveness, a play that parallels its two protagonists with a quiet urgency and honesty, as they dutifully unpack a historic tale, based on actual people, steeped in love, care, culture, tradition, racism, and a strong, overpowering desire to belong. It’s a story that most desperately needs to be shared today, as we watch masked ICE officers in the United States snatch random POC off the streets and in their workplaces, ripping them violently from their families and the lives they have worked so hard to co-create, and basically making them disappear into dark vans, kidnapped away from society.
The play, Forgiveness, electrofies those current conditions, bending it backwards in time and place, out of order but in a meaningful catapulted creation, that focuses its form on how the smart and determined Mitsue Sakamoto, beautifully portrayed by Yoshie Bancroft (Pacific Theatre’s God Said This), and her loving family are pulled apart and sent by oppressive forces to a Japanese Canadian internment camp in the Canadian interior, far from their home, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Forgiveness also unleashes the unforgettable and inhumane treatment of the French Canadian Ralph MacLean, played forcibly by an engaging Jeff Lillico (Soulpepper/Off-Broadway’s Of Human Bondage), who, as a young man joins the Canadian army, and soon after, endures years of imprisonment in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, struggling to stay sane and stay alive. Both are haunted by these horrific imprisonments for the duration of their lives, with aspects and ghosts following their very footsteps as they try to reorder and revive the spirit that once lived inside them.
One of those stories is openly and readily discussed, and honored in our history lessons, while the other, baked in xenophobia, racism, and hatred, is sidelined and shoved away to the dark corner of history, mainly because it doesn’t fit nicely within this country’s positive narrative. And we all know which I’m talking about, because one of these imprisonments doesn’t align well with our idealized concept that, as a country, we are a forward-thinking progressive society and accepting of others, and always have been. Even though there are just so many examples of the dishonesty in that rosy presentation.
There is darkness in our Canadian history, particularly in the treatments that are dissected within this captivating history lesson of a play, and also within two others that I am intimately connected to; one is the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community by the Canadian government which is detailed within that “Fruit Machine” documentary, and the other concerns the horrendous treatment of the Indigenous Canadians throughout this country’s history, that is still being sorted out gravely to this very day. I won’t dig too deeply into these two issues, but being a card-carrying Status Indigenous gay cis-male Canadian, I just had to voice the unmistakable parallels, because within this country’s history concerning these particularly jarring issues, the government of Canada has systematically destroyed people’s lives at the hands of its own rulings. These state-sanctioned acts of hate were much more than just inequality, but brutal determinations centered in racism, prejudice, homophobia, and xenophobia at its worst, that cost thousands of Canadians their homes, their livelihood, their sense of self, their pride, their dignity, their sense of safety, and sometimes their lives.
Forgiveness, as directed with intelligence and care by Stafford Arima (Broadway’s Allegiance), dives into their narrative, relinquishing typical chronological time frames, and focusing its creative eye on the invisible and visible. Centering around the World War 2 scars that have been passed down alongside the frightening racial targeting that the Asian community had to deal with and try to survive inside of, the plays layers out its tale in overlapping segments, when a young Mitsue dreams of being a modern Canadian woman alongside her best friend as they walk between insults and slurs on their way to and from school. It’s also about a young teenager named Ralph, in an attempt to get away from a threatening home life, mainly due to an alcoholic father, disturbingly well danced out by Sean Arbuckle (Stratford’s Casey and Diana), lies his way into the Canadian Army. He’s thinking of it as an escape, but disturbingly finds another prison waiting for him soon after, far away from home, under the hard abusive fist of another alcoholic, Camp Commandant Tetsutaro Kato, portrayed forcibly by playwright Hiro Kanagawa (Gateway’s Art).
The descent and disturbance of the two tracks are played out in fine form on that long thrust, thanks to set and costumes by Lorenzo Savoini (Stratford’s London Assurance), and detailed lighting by Kalleigh Krysztofiak (Stratford’s The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?), backed by captivating original illustrations and animations by Cindy Mochizuki (Richmond’s Extraction) and a strongly emotional projection design by Sammy Chien/Chimerik 似不像 (Stratford’s Salesman in China). The deliverance takes us down a strongly inhabited emotional road, enriched by a solid sound design by Olivia Sheller (Stratford’s Cymbeline) and musical compositions by Allison Lynch (Theatre Calgary’s The Scarlet Letter), that sometimes feels more like an overwhelming history lesson than the captivating scattering of memory-filled moments and tragedies. Filling our senses with the remembered pain of confinement and targeting, the play wholeheartedly draws us into the emotional core of connectivity and care through honest connection. It’s a complicated rewinding, delivering complex emotional ideas around “work is freedom” inside a crumbling chicken coop or a torturous prisoner-of-war camp, as we watch their friends and family members die before their eyes, unable to help them stay longer. And for what end?
We see what the world looks like soon after the conflict ends, when Mitsue and Ralph are forced to confront their bitter anger, disappointment, disgust, and grief, alongside broken ideals of community and acknowledgement. How do we hold on while also unraveling in unconscious moments of nightmare pain and resentment? That is one of the many questions thrown forward in this compelling new play, but it’s really about more than just reliving these scenes of unforgettable torture and betrayal. Forgiveness is also about moving forward with grace and virtue, against all odds, without forgetting the hurt and anger that steadily vibrates within. It’s about looking into the eyes of those who might feel like they have wronged us and choosing to forgive, while never forgetting, nor trying to erase our history. The act of Forgiveness is one of the most powerful decisions one can make, to choose grace and virtue over long-buried anger and grief. And naturally it is ushered to the front when Mitsue’s teenage son, Stan, playfully portrayed by Douglas Oyama (Amazon Prime’s “Cruel Intentions“), long after a return to something that slightly resembles life before the war, find love and caring companionship with Ralph’s daughter, Diana, loving portrayed by composer Allison Lynch (Vertigo’s Sweeney Todd). Together, their love and attachment force the families together and find an emotional pathway to Forgiveness.
The cast of pros expertly elevates the rhetoric with meaningful and emotional embodiments that shine a light on all the complicated violence that lived within those years and those conflicts. This is particularly true for Michael Man (Shaw’s Snow in Midsummer) in his loving full portrayal of Mitsue’s love interest and future husband, Hideo, as well as the joy-filled depiction of Mitsue’s other teenage son, Ron Sakamoto, by an engaging 郝邦宇 Steven Hao (Tarragon’s Cockroach). That vivid character turns out to have had, in the real world music industry, quite the compelling success story all his own. As do many of the characters (see the program notes on their real-life histories).
Ralph’s fellow hometown army buddy friends, the young Adams and Coop, are hauntingly well-played by Joe Perry (Stratford’s As You Like It) and Gabriel Antonacci (Stratford’s The Diviners). As young men, they show us the ignorance of racism, before throwing them into a certain type of hell that no one could come out unscathed. And like many of the other cast players, particularly Arbuckle, Jacklyn Francis (Stratford’s To Kill a Mockingbird), June Fukumaura (Lion Gate’s “Joyride“), and Manami Hara (Shaw’s Snow in Midsummer), they excel portraying numerous characters that help fill out the emotional terrain of this story of love and family thrown down by hate, ignorance, and a WW2 bombing that reshaped North America.
The unraveling in this fascinating play is filled with powerful imagery and exposition that dynamically pulls us into the horrors of war and incarceration, both in the POW camp and the homegrown Japanese internment camps made out of farm buildings barely suitable for livestock. Even though sometimes the framings overwhelm the formula with overly simplistic graphics that minimize the terror, and dense details that distance us from the personal, torturous hardship inflicted on these fellow Canadians, simply because of their racial background and heritage, the overall effect is captivating, enlightening, and heartbreaking. The play is a stellar and emotional testament to the power of true Forgiveness, with the breaking of hostilities and long-held assumptions about who the enemy truly is finds unity and compassion at a familial dinner table of low-sodium Chinese Canadian dishes served by a family of Japanese Canadians to an open French Canadian man suffering from PTSD and his cautious wife who worries. They come together to honor love, yet find compassion, care, and a moment of Forgiveness that will stay within for a long time. It’s a carefully constructed testimonial for virtue, not vengeance, and should not be missed.
