Velina Hasu Houston and David Saint

SEASON PREVIEW CONVERSATIONS

Who is Tadashi Lane, and Where is His Mother?
To ring in the New Year, New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse will premiere Velina Hasu Houston’s Waiting for Tadashi, Jan. 3–Feb. 8, staged by artistic director David Saint. Like many of Houston’s plays, Tadashi poses questions about personal identity as it explores the cultural complexities faced by the offspring of Japanese women and African-American servicemen after World War II. Houston imagines Tadashi Lane’s journey of self-discovery following a life as an outsider in both his native Japan and his adopted homeland, America.

Velina Hasu Houston: Tadashi Lane’s tormented life began in a shabby, second-rate Tokyo orphanage during the U.S. occupation of Japan. He definitely emerges as a symbol of the many stateless orphans born of Japanese women and American servicemen in the aftermath of World War II. Most importantly, his life evolves as a metaphor for the never-ending philosophical search for the answer to the question, “Who am I?” The fact that he is Japanese, AfricanAmerican and American Indian complicates his quest to answer that question, particularly because of the ways in which these nations reacted to the “orphan problem” at the end of the war.

On his 50th birthday, Tadashi’s long-term relationship disintegrates, triggering his search for a new centering force—he begins an odyssey to find his mother. But Tadashi isn’t looking for his biological mother; rather, he’s looking for his adoptive mother from whom he has been estranged for 20 years.

David Saint: Ultimately, he’s trying to find himself. His journey, though, is specifically trained on his struggle with his cultural identity. The challenge in realizing these two rich cultures on stage—namely the Japanese and the African-American—is to keep the focus keenly aimed on the universal theme of personal identity and fulfillment, manifested in the classic mother-son reconciliation.

Houston: Many of my plays have been about identity—discovering it, embracing it, sustaining it, protecting it in hostile or alien environments, and even finding it when it has been lost due to one’s own flaws and others’ transgressions. I believe that the human psyche is born with encumbrances—crosses to bear, so to speak—and with the desire to heal, to feel whole and undiminished, to cultivate oneself and to ascend.

Saint: I’m impressed with your ability to manage the delicate balance between the particulars of these two historical milieus—the post–World War II societies of the U.S. and Japan, and contemporary American society—so that neither overpowers the central story of the search for one’s place in the world.

Houston:No matter how diverse our backgrounds may be, we all at some point feel the need to find what the protagonist of my play calls our “center.” We are on a search to discover our sum and substance, and to embrace this so that we can feel at home in body, mind and spirit wherever we may go.

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