Reviewed by Alec
Clayton
 |
| Jim Winkler and Aya Hashiguchi |
James
(Jim Winkler) is a gruff, profane and loveable Kentucky hillbilly, a recovering
alcoholic obsessed with collecting and selling rocks. He serves as character in
and narrator of Leah Nanako Winkler’s God Said This. The “audience” to
his narration are fellow alcoholics (not seen on stage) at his AA meeting. He
opens the play by introducing himself and saying he’s an alcoholic, that his wife,
Masako (Aya Hashiguchi), is in the hospital with cancer, that his oldest
daughter, Hiro (Leilani Berinobis), hates him, and his youngest daughter, Sophie
(Jasmine Jaqua), has found religion. James and Hiro think Sophie’ religiosity
is absurd, but Masako prays with her, and that just might have healing power.
During
his drinking days, James was an abusive father. Now he wants to make up with
his daughters, but they’re having nothing to do with it.
Hiro
is a worldly rebel determined to crush the expectations of a dutiful Japanese-American
girl. All of the women, in fact, shatter the cliched images of Japanese women,
and James is nothing like the stereotypical redneck alcoholic. They are all well-rounded
complex human beings.
Enter
John (Jacob Tice), Hiro’s old high school friend. He is a single father who
never left his Kentucky home, and Hiro assumes he’s a downhome, uncomplicated
playboy. They get drunk and high together, and Hiro wants to “make out” (her
term) with him. But he wants nothing to do with that. He wants their friendship
to be one-hundred percent platonic (his terminology)—proving that he, like all
the family, fits no stereotypes. He has a post-graduate degree and is dedicated
to loving and protecting his thirteen-year-old son.
The
cast is outstanding, including Berinobis as Hiro is a stand-in for the
originally cast actor and had only four rehearsals before opening night. She
performed with script in hand but did not need it all the time and did not let
that hamper her performance.
Both
Winkler and Tice fit so smoothly into their roles that it seems they are not
acting at all.
Hashiguchi
plays the wife/mother, Masako, as brave and loving with the sweetest of smiles,
but 
Hiro (Leilani Berinobis) and John (Jason Tice)
she sometimes breaks down into unstoppable sobbing.
Jaqua’s
Sophie is the only character who comes close to behaving like the sweet and
dutiful Japanese daughter. She is quiet and seemingly shy but stands up bravely
in the practice of her brand of Christianity and surprises everyone from time
to time with her rebelliousness (smoking a joint, for instance).
The
family was not able to get along in the past, but in coming together to be with
Masako they learn to forgive and to love one another.
Kudos
to director Randy Clark, sound designer Niclas Olson and lighting designer
Michelle Weingarden Bandes for their excellent work.
God
Said This was the
2018 winner of the Yale Drama series competition chosen by Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright Ayad Aktar, who described it as conveying “a deeply
felt sense of the universal—of the perfection of our parents’ flawed love for
each other and for us . . .”
God
Said This
7:30
p.m. Friday, Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday through April 3
Dukesbay
Theater, 508 6gh Ave. upstairs above the Grand Cinema (no handicap access)
$15
at DukesbahyGodSaidThis.eventrite.com
www.dukesbay.org
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