No matter how clean someone leaves their home before renting it out, they can鈥檛 help but leave behind some clues. So when Tetsuro Shigematsu moved into his friend鈥檚 family home in North 麻豆传媒映画and found a white porcelain mug emblazoned with the logo of Japan Camera, his curiosity was piqued. Later, he found hand towels embroidered with the same logo.
鈥淲hat was my friend Donna鈥檚 connection to this business I could scarcely remember?,鈥� the theatre artists asks, seated in an Eastside rehearsal space while preparing for his new play, .
Shigematsu is perched on an old sofa surrounded by tattered, mismatched furniture. Minutes before, he had burst through the door down the hall having just wrapped a solid morning rehearsal.
His investigation of the mug led him to an archetypal figure that he, and anyone who saw his sold-out 2015 play,听, would be forgiven for being fascinated by: the father.
Born of a different generation, Shigematsu鈥檚 friend鈥檚 father, Mas Yamamoto, had owned a chain of one-hour photo finishing shops in North 麻豆传媒映画and Victoria, and the towel and mug had survived as mementos into the digital age. Shigematsu was initially inspired by the objects to write a play about a family business, but his focus quickly shifted. Through 36 hours of one-to-one interviews with Yamamoto, the playwright was drawn into the elder man鈥檚 experiences of Japanese-Canadian incarceration during World War II, his first love and his experience as a first aid attendant during the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line in the Canadian Arctic at the height of the Cold War.
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Produced by Donna Yamamoto (Mas Yamamoto鈥檚 daughter and Shigematsu鈥檚 friend and past collaborator) through the company, 1 Hour Photo听made its debut at this week and runs through to the 15th.
Shigematsu鈥檚 last play, the deeply emotional Empire of the Son, was based on interviews between him and his own father in the final months of his father鈥檚 life. In a somewhat obsessive pattern, Shigematsu began interviewing Yamamoto soon after his father鈥檚 death.
鈥淭he similarities between Empire of the Son and 1 Hour Photo听are not lost on me,鈥� he admits, 鈥渂ecause once again I鈥檓 talking with an older Japanese man, interviewing him.鈥�
And, picking up where Empire of the Sonleft off, this new piece is the story of Mas Yamamoto鈥檚 life and Shigematsu鈥檚 experience interviewing him.
鈥淓ven though I had the opportunity to write any play [I wanted to] when I was commissioned [to write] a new work, it did occur to me that, subconsciously, I was addressing some sort of deep-seated psychological need to continue sitting at the knee of an elder and playing the role of the attentive son.鈥�
Describing the interviewing sessions as a 鈥渟trange ritual,鈥� Shigematsu says that the act of oral story telling is not common in his experience of Japanese culture. The term 鈥榞aman,鈥� means to endure suffering without complaint, he explains, and is the Japanese version of the proverbial stiff upper lip. Gaman is a cultural imperative, he says, and that, combined with the shame felt by Japanese Canadians during the internment, means that he hasn鈥檛 heard much about this dark time (which marks its 75th anniversary this year).
鈥淧eople talk about story telling as being this universal mode of transmitting knowledge, and 鈥� that may be true, but I always say,鈥� his voice tightening, 鈥渢hat particular tradition is not evenly distributed鈥� [Younger Japanese] people don鈥檛 know these stories because, [seniors] don鈥檛 want to burden the young people, they just want to move on.鈥�
After the success of Empire of the Son, The Cultch was excited to welcome 麻豆传媒映画Asian Canadian Theatre back for the premiere of 1 Hour Photo.
The company has a strong vision that permeates throughout the play, says Cultch executive director Heather Redfern, and 鈥渁 very poetic way of telling stories that is also quite straightforward that I love.鈥�
鈥淭here鈥檚 also an authenticity to the stories,鈥� she adds. 鈥淚 think that Tetsuro is an incredibly empathetic performer, artist, [and] writer. Working with everyone in that company, you have this tremendous sense of their ability to empathise with the lives of multiple generations.鈥�
Empire of the Son听toured nationally and told the story of a creative first-generation Canadian negotiating a fraught relationship with his immigrant father. It stood out to critics because of Shigematsu鈥檚 ability to convey the complexities of an inter-generational relationship, as well the methods he used to tell it: real-time video projections, audio recordings, old letters and photos.
In 1 Hour Photo, using sourced family photographs, rare footage and audio from his interviews, Shigematsu will introduce the audience to Yamamoto鈥檚 first love, Midge, whom he met at the age of 14 while incarcerated at a , B.C.
Living in what Shigematsu describes as 鈥渉astily built shacks,鈥� and 鈥渦nder extreme privation,鈥� Yamamoto fell in love. The pair were eventually separated when released from the camp, and Yamamoto went on to have a happy marriage with another woman. But Shigematsu was struck by how often Midge鈥檚 name came up during the interviews.
鈥淢idge became a kind of symbol for Mas, in terms of trying to become the kind of person he believed would be worthy of someone as brilliant as her,鈥� he explains. After a decade of struggle following the end of the war, and the challenge of finishing high school as an adult, Yamamoto eventually earned three university degrees, got married and had three children.
A rare video projection from the shelf of the accompanies the piece. The unauthorized footage (the Canadian government had confiscated all cameras from the Japanese) is of Lemon Creek, and was recorded by a detainee with an eight-milimetre camera.
Looking back on the development of the show over the past two years, Shigematsu says he eventually understood what compelled him to sit with Mas and do the interviews. Central to his investigation was the question of how best to die, and how best to live.
鈥淎s different as they are, the answer is exactly the same: which is surrounded by loved ones and without regret,鈥� he says. 听
鈥� 1 Hour Photo runs now to Oct. 15, at various times, at the Historic Theatre at The Cultch (1895 Venables St.) .
