|
Unrelenting Relaxation
ANAHEIM HILLS NEWS The lives of five young European women, a Brit, a Dane, a Fin, a French and a Pole, were shattered in one brief moment during the early days of the Second World War. The premise is simple, and the sober staging underlines these survivors' harrowing plight as they address an off-stage interviewer, unraveling their yarns at the end of their lives. ...The Japanese never acknowledged or redressed the tort, which compelled the aging women to turn to the media to draw attention to their story. Writer and Director Amanda DeMaio heard their plea and responded with this powerful dramatization. The cast does a superb job of remaining in character while delving into wrenching emotions and sustaining accurate foreign accents. Kirk Huff's stark backlighting harshly delineates and accentuates each protagonists' fragmented monologue. Jon Gaw's intricate sound clips weave through the narratives, substantiating the unembellished truths the audience is subjected to, silent, squirming witnesses of difficult to accept facts. The question we are left with is an unrequited why, with
no possible, plausible answer. War is imponderable, its alleged rights
and wrongs ineluctably adding to two wrongs in the final analysis.
[top]
OC WEEKLY Several years ago, I caught the tail end of an NPR news snippet about Korean comfort women seeking redress from the Japanese government for atrocities committed against them during World War II. Kidnapped and relocated to "houses of relaxation," the women were forced to become whores for the Japanese military, enduring years of rape and physical abuse. To this day, the Japanese have coldly refused to admit their culpability for these crimes or others, such as the Rape of Nanking or horrendous, Nazi-like medical experiments. Amanda DeMaio saw a similar report on television, and it spurred her to action: she wrote Unrelenting Relaxation, a powerhouse play about four prostituted women and the female doctor who tries to help them any way she can, even if it's just to help them die. And an elegant work it is, too. Without a single bloodied body or slogan, DeMaio, who also directs, has crafted the most graceful and compelling anti-war piece I've ever seen. Aided by Jon Gaw and Kirk Huff's minimalist set, sound and lighting-thin white curtains, colored lights and five chairs-DeMaio strips the production down to the basics: her razor-edged script and great actors. Without exception, all five actresses (Patti Cumby, Kara Knappe, Mo Arii, Cynthia Ryanen and Nora Zimmett) effect a solid piece of ensemble acting of the kind rarely seen onstage, weaving together a devastating story of crushed dreams, hope and salvaged dignity that burrows deep inside your heart. ... Until I saw this play, I was completely unaware that
European women captured by Japan's allies were also put into the houses.
That quality makes Unrelenting Relaxation a rarity: political theater
that opens your mind and your tear ducts.
[top]
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER World War II produced a multitude of horrors. Among the lesser known of these were the abduction of at least 200,000 women who were drugged and forced into sexual slavery. The Japanese military began the practice in 1932 and didn't stop until 1945. Meanwhile, the Russians picked up on the practice, either setting up their own houses of prostitution or using female prisoners as bargaining chips with the Japanese. Local writer-director Amanda DeMaio has studied the history of this sordid chapter of the war and packaged it into a harrowing two hours of personal testimony. The slaves were referred to by the euphemism "comfort women," and the houses known as "houses of relaxation." DeMaio's play is therefore - and with a touch of grim irony - called "Unrelenting Relaxation." The play premiered at Stages in 1995 with DeMaio at the helm and three of Stages' best actresses - Cynthia Ryanen, Patti Cumby and Kara Knappe - in key roles. Now the play is back, this time at The Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills... DeMaio's staging is clean and uncomplicated. An objective, unseen interviewer (Frank Tryon) asks each woman if she is ready to be interviewed on film, presumably for a historical documentary. The lights hit each woman, and the questions - at first, innocuous, then, tentatively, more probing - begin. The five characters, composites of dozens of actual women, are Dorothy, a gifted Polish pianist headed for a life in the concert hall; Ariela, a Parisian ballet dancer; Jane, a refined young woman from a small town in England; Hanya Westola, a Finnish bakery worker; and Louisa, a medical student from Denmark. Like anyone in life, each woman had a vision of herself and the path her life was going to take. The war interrupted each woman's chosen path, and what those changes didn't destroy, the brutal negation of their dreams through sexual captivity did. Though they're grouped in close proximity to one another, it's understood that each of the five is being recorded in isolation. What connects them -- even despite the great distances of time and space that separates their lives -- is the horrible lack of humanity forced upon them. "Unrelenting Relaxation" is a powerful, five-part testimonial of ultimate brutality that depicts how the tentacles of war could reach those you never would have imagined it could. All five actresses deliver stellar performances and, though no dialect coach is credited, each offers flawless dialects. Cumby shows us that Dorothy's anger has been her constant companion for 50 years - a fact borne out by her fate at the war's end. It's a poignant performance of an artist who clung to piano music as her salvation and who suffered a horrible, cruelly ironic fate. As Ariela, Zimmett shows a similar artist with a passion for her art, dancing, but one who takes a much different approach. Zimmett depicts warmth, elegance and finesse in the opening scenes and, as the interviewer strikes closer to the Nazi invasion of Paris, her cold scorn. Ryanen's heart-wrenching performance makes us believe, at first, that Hanya is diffident towards telling her story. We soon realize, first, that even today her English is rudimentary and, second, that she has never gone a day without being haunted by the Russian brutality that destroyed her simple life as a wife and mother. The British Jane Hudson-Burke appears to be on the opposite end of the scale as Hanya. Knappe - who, like Ryanen and Cumby, reprises her role from the 1995 staging - radiates the quiet warmth of one who has healed, emotionally and psychically. In Japanese-occupied Singapore, she lost her first husband and met her second, which helped her get past the shame of physical degradation and regain her sense of self. Louisa is set apart as not having been forced into submission. Instead, the young Danish woman was offered a choice: help the Nazis perform medical experiments on the sex slaves or become enslaved. She chooses the former, then struggles with her personal horror and guilt. Arii delivers Louisa's brittle intelligence and formal demeanor and, below the surface, her anger. It's the combination of DeMaio's expertly crafted script
and her staging techniques that give "Unrelenting Relaxation" the force
of a sledgehammer. Each of the five characters is given moments of emotional
power that showcase their acting skill; all of DeMaio's actors demonstrate
an admirable degree of restraint. Jon Gaw's sound design and Kirk Huff's
lighting design work hand in hand with the mesmerizing text. In moments
of sheer horror, the lights go down and the backdrop turns blood red,
while each woman's monologue is heightened by subtle sound effects that
help us visualize their harrowing tales.
[top]
ACCESSIBILITY ONLINE The five women, Dorothy (Patti Cumby), Jane Hudson-Burke (Kara Knappe), Louisa May Brockman (Tracy Perdue), Hanya Westola (Cynthia Ryanen), and Ariela Solis (Nora Zimmett), all lived in Europe a few years before the start of WWII. All of these women were in a way, victims of the enemy forces that invaded their respective countries. Not in war or combat, but something worse. They tell their stories to an off-stage interviewer (Brandon Ryan Puleio), documenting their tales. What these women were part of was a forced set up, primarily by the Japanese military, housed in what was called "houses of relaxation" working as "comfort women"; that is, prostitutes in whorehouses. This was a moment within the war that is seldom discussed, and even the Japanese refused to acknowledge that such houses ever existed! Through these testimonials, such events bring new light into a time of war that was not glorious for all who participated. Directed by the playwright,
"Unrelenting Relaxation" brings a powerful message through dialogue
and emotion that focuses on what a war can bring without firing a shot
to the enemy, or anyone else!
[top]
BACK STAGE WEST Staged as a sort of inquest into the brutality these
women suffered, the play has the cast (Patti Cumby, Kara Knappe, Tracy
Perdue, Cynthia Ryanen, and Nora Zimmett) sit and answer the questions
of an unseen Interviewer (Brandon Ryan Puleio), and their answers unfold
into stories of devastation.
[top]
|