BWW Reviews: Intriguing Yet Muddled ZERO HOUR: TOKYO ROSE'S LAST TAPE Plays Kennedy Center

Celebrated Japanese artist Miwa Yanagi's play, Zero Hour: Tokyo Rose's Last Tape is making the rounds to various American cities (before playing Washington DC's Kennedy Center this past weekend, it played New York). Fundamentally, the North American tour is a great idea because it takes a more or less comparatively lesser known segment of World War II history involving Japanese Americans and presents it to American audiences in an intriguing way. Underpinning the history-based narrative is also the idea of young, impressionable females being pawns for their older male counterparts - an idea which transcends historical, geographical, and sociocultural contexts.

Five young, drafted Japanese American/Canadian women are featured as the voices behind "The Zero Hour" - a World War II era radio program that the state-run "Radio Tokyo" broadcast to American military personnel in the Pacific. The entertainment program, originally intended to be a propaganda tool, proved to be popular with American troops, giving them access to popular music and commentary - delivered by young women with alluring voices - that poked fun at the events of the day. After the end of hostilities, Daniel Yamada (Yohei Matsukado), a young Japanese American soldier with an ear for language, sets out to find out the identities of the female announcers. He's most interested in finding the announcer with the most unique voice. She also offered the most pointed spoken commentary of them all. He wants to find "Tokyo Rose."

A visit to the radio station gives way to introductions to the technical/engineering backbone of the radio program (Toshiya Shiomi, played by Sogo Nishimura) and five largely indistinguishable women (Ami Kobayashi, Hinako Arao, Sachi Masuda, Megumi Matsumoto, and Aki) all dressed in identical blue and white attire (Yukari Asakura) with their faces more or less hidden. Two of the five women announcers stand out. Jane Sugawa (Ami Kobayashi), a Vancouver native, is the most trained and polished and the only one of the five that wasn't originally just a typist. Another is Annie Oguri (Hinako Arao), the only one who maintained her American citizenship. She's initially a bit naïve, attracts media attention, and is dubbed "Tokyo Rose." Eventually, upon return to the United States, she's asked to stand trial for treason, altering the course of her life. Yamada, however, remains confident that she is not "Tokyo Rose." The question is to what extent she and the other nameless women were paws at the hand of the Japanese state and how, to what degree that were involved in preparing the script read of the radio, and what Shiomi - whom Yamada has developed a relationship with - is hiding about how the radio program was prepared and executed.

It's probably best to come into this production with an understanding of what "happened" already, be it through one's own historical study or a simple review of the program notes. If one is simply rely on the multi-hatted Yanagi (concept, script, direction, stage design) to tell the story, the end result will likely be frustration for many. To say that the story is muddled and ideas are often repeated with little purpose would be an understatement. While one should accept that it's, in essence, a mystery play with missing pieces, there's little excuse for the script being "all over the map" as it is. Added to that, it's possible that one might also consider glancing at a watch multiple times during the two+ hour intermission-less show. The chess games between Shiomi and Yamada - while made more interesting with Megumi Matsumoto's choreography, Wakashima Tadashi's game design, and Tadashi Mitani's video design - is a particular detraction. Indeed at one point late in the show, one player refers to the "endless" game; the same could be said about those scenes in the production. While the games - and the choreography used to implement them - play into the overarching idea of the nameless and interchangeable women as "pawns," as used, they only make the show run time longer with little payoff. Overall, a few bright "story" moments aside, it's extremely apparent that Yanagi was more interested in the production concept than anything else. At the end, we're left with a pretty picture to see, an interesting soundscape to listen to, and not much else at all.

The hard working and undoubtedly talented cast members do well with the material they have to work with, though they are, perhaps understandably, much more natural and less wooden when performing dialogue in Japanese (translations are projected on a screen). The technical designs add an interesting layer. This includes the all-important sound scape of radio recordings (the mix of clear recordings and garbled ones is effective for the story). Unfortunately, none of these positives can allow us to ignore the fact that Yanagi's script takes out any raw human emotion and heart and I was left feeling nothing, except for the urge to leave the theatre as soon as possible. With a story that's essentially a human interest one, that's a big problem.

Running Time: 2 hours and 20 minutes with no intermission.

"Zero Hour: Tokyo Rose's Last Tape" played two performances at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - 2700 F Street, NW in Washington, DC - on February 6 and 7. For a list of upcoming theatrical productions at Kennedy Center, consult its website.

Caption: Aki, Hinako Arao, Megumi Matsumoto, Sachi Masuda and Ami Kobayashi (Photo: Ayumi Sakamoto)