After the War

We saw After the War last night. It is not really worth seeing, as the plot is fragmented and melodramatic (at the same time that it manages to be lackluster and dull - probably because the instances of melodrama are all loose threads. There really is no central plot to the thing), sort of a soap opera with post-war racial relations themes. Yawn. If you are a fanatic for local history, you should probably see it, because it covers an interesting time in San Francisco, but it is far too caught up in ithues: who is the bigger victim, the black fellow or the fellow who was in a concentration camp; is the brother who fought in the 442nd the brave one or the one who was the "No-No Boy?"; and all of these questions boil down in the final scene to "whitey is at it again."

The tragedy of urban renewal in the Fillmore certainly had racial undertones, but that was one part of a complex and diabolical zeitgeist.

But, this play wasn't really an essay on a particular time and place, nor was it a thorough evaluation of black-Japanese relations. Instead it was a story, and it is in its storytelling that it failed.

The playwright (can't remember his name), needs to remember that if you show a gun in the first Act, it had better be fired in the sedond. Not waved around (wimpy, wimpy, wimpy - is this the Liberal gunphobe way to deal with that rule?). Fired. Bang.

And the acting was quite disappointing. Three of the actors seemed to be trying to out-ham each other. ACT usually does better work than this.

My recommendation: if someone gives you a ticket, go. If you have to pay, skip it.