CONFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS
This weekend, for the first time in 30 years, three different religious holidays overlap. Jews celebrated the first day of Passover on April 15, that same day was Good Friday for Christians, and it’s in the middle of Ramadan for Muslims. Today is Easter Sunday! Whatever you celebrate or don’t, may you enjoy the annual renewal of spring!
VIEWING—ASIAN HISTORICAL DRAMA
Pachinko (Apple TV+)
Based on a 2017 novel of the same name by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko is a history lesson in Korean Japanese relations between about 1930 and 1989 and a study of cultural identity. Set in multiple locations, Busan, Korea, and Osaka and Tokyo, Japan, it follows several generations of a Korean family who move to Osaka. Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and followed a policy of wiping out as much Korean culture as possible. This lasted until 1945. Even after the war, Koreans who had previously emigrated and settled in Japan were subject to prejudice and discrimination.
The series focuses on Sunja, a young woman in Busan, who falls in love with and becomes pregnant by Hansu, a rich, married man. When offered the opportunity to marry Isak, a stranger to her village, she accepts and moves with him to Japan where his brother and wife live. The series goes back and forth in time so that we encounter Sunja in 1989 as an old woman, her son Mozasu, who runs a pachinko (game) parlor in Osaka, and her grandson, Solomon. Solomon appears to have a successful financial career in the States but is currently on assignment to Tokyo.
Although it follows the basic threads of the novel, the series is quite different, particularly in its juxtaposition of past and present timeframes. As one example, the centrality of rice is played out ladled from a primitive stove and, in the next scene, scooped from a modern electric rice cooker.
This drama is an ambitious effort with a large Asian cast and different colored subtitles in Japanese, Korean and English, depending on who is speaking. Once I became familiar with the characters again, I found it compelling and even tear-inducing at points. There will be 8 episodes in all with the last two released later in April. Very much recommended!
LIVE THEATER—SLICE OF LIFE
Knoxville (Asolo Theatre)
Knoxville, a new musical, is more opera than theater, more sung than spoken. We were at the world premiere the other night, and it was an immersive and emotional experience. A study of ordinary life, faith, and death, it’s based on James Agee’s autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family. Viewed through the perspective of the adult author and the author as 6-year-old Rufus, it’s a story of a different time (1915) in a particular place (Knoxville, Tennessee), but its themes are universal.
The cast of characters and musicians (some doubling as actors) is large and diverse, and Jack Casey as young Rufus is just one standout. As always, the staging at Asolo is very creative. The use of a portable window frame throughout was especially effective.
The play was performed without an intermission and the hour and forty minutes just whizzed by! If you saw Our Town earlier this season, you’d probably agree with me that Knoxville is a companion piece—different time and place, but related themes. In both works, religion plays a prominent role.
Professional theater doesn’t get much better than this, and we in the Sarasota-Bradenton area are fortunate to be the beneficiaries. Tony Award-winning director and writer Frank Galati directs this production. It runs through May 11. Highly recommended!
