“Burnt Lemon have shone a light on another silenced woman’s story, leaving the audience educated and thoroughly entertained”
Slick and inventive, Burnt Lemon’s new musical focuses on one American woman’s struggle through war and xenophobia to get back home. Based on the story of Iva Toguri vs the United States, we meet Iva (Maya Britto) in her formative years at UCLA during the 1940s. She is an American woman of Japanese descent “Born with American dreams running through (her) veins”. At the request of her mother (Yuki Sutton) she goes to Japan to care for a sick aunt. Within a few weeks. the events at Pearl Harbour instigate the US joining World War Two leaving Iva stranded, unable to go back to America and without a family.
She is pressurised by the Japanese government to renounce her American citizenship and broadcast anti-American propaganda at Radio Tokyo. In rebellion, she refuses to give up her American status and becomes a double agent passing disguised messages to the American allies through her supposedly anti-American indoctrination. When Iva is later brought to trial by the United States accused of treason, the injustice of her tribulation sits heavy in the air.
The plot is very convoluted but the writing partnership of Maryhee Yoon and Cara Baldwin has been concise and eloquent in exhibiting the facts. Bolstered by composer William Patrick Harrison’s pop-cum-rap music which resonates with some jaw dropping vocals throughout, in particularly from Lucy Park and Yuki Sutton. The ensemble multi-rolling as many different characters is impressively smooth, as is their choreography and physical storytelling.
Luke W Robson’s set design is minimalist, and versatile. With the wooden Radio Tokyo apparatus at the heart of the set, later used as the judge’s bench when Iva arrives in the American courtroom.
Tokyo Rose, from this all female powerhouse, is truly astonishing. Burnt Lemon have shone a light on another silenced woman’s story, leaving the audience educated and thoroughly entertained.
Reviewed by Liz Davis
Tokyo Rose
Underbelly Cowgate until 25th August as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019
Good ideas stick, great plays take time, and Tom Ratcliffe’s ‘Circa’, first seen in London two and a half years ago, has benefitted from having a long gestation period. Ratcliffe, together with director Andy Twyman, has constructed a nuanced, honest and touching story of one man’s journey through life, love, relationships, and sex.
From an insecure young man moving to London to broaden his artistic and sexual horizons, through the trails and tedium of middle-age and the quest for monogamy and a family, to an older man coming to grips with how technology has terribly altered his search for companionship, ‘Circa’ charts one man’s life through his relationships. Simultaneously intimate and epic, we are introduced to recurring characters, one-night-stands, rent boys and first loves, all linking together to show how past experiences inevitably press on present concerns.
To reveal more would spoil the journey. Ratcliffe has developed a wonderfully entertaining play that leaves on a poignant note. In the context of gay life, where is community to be found? Loneliness emerges as a key theme, and methods of finding love and sex remain illicit and clandestine in a play that places gay men’s lives in the context of a straight man’s world.
Three actors play our lead character in the three iterations of his life, and all five members of the ensemble play multiple roles throughout (with the exception of Jenna Fincken, sadly underused representing the protagonist’s only attempt at heterosexuality). The whole cast is on top form throughout, but more work is needed to physically differentiate one character from the next. Twyman’s direction keeps the story precise and clear, with Ted White’s sound and Luke W. Robson’s lighting working beautifully to express the passing of time and closing of scenes. Robson’s set, resembling the sort of thing you’d see in a contemporary art gallery, is a cool blank canvas for any situation to be projected onto.
Whilst last year’s ‘The Inheritance’ dealt with the legacy of gay history, ‘Circa’ addresses the legacy of one person’s past relationships. As a synecdoche for many gay men’s stories, Ratcliffe has it spot on. This play is filled to the brim with truth, emotion and wit. As entertaining as it is moving, ‘Circa’ is unmissable theatre for anyone interested in queer stories, and, indeed, anyone interested in love.
