‘Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt’ Quickly Sours
Julia Izumi’s self-absorbed solo show offers weak humor, clunky staging, and little emotional payoff beneath its quirky concept.
As Julia Izumi jokes early on in Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt (With Live and Active Cultures), there can be something a little awkward about a playwright appearing in their own autobiographical play. And she’s right: the squirm factor threatens to be dangerously high when a writer stands there within spitting distance, baring their talents, story, and soul.
The truth is, it’s the theatrical equivalent of a hostage situation, and the play’s got to be oh-so-very-good if it’s going to set anyone free.
Unfortunately, the hour and 45 minutes (sans intermission) of Akira comes without any such reprieve. In fact, Izumi’s entire approach — from that first joke onward — is to basically keep reminding us in one way or another that this is her play, her journey, and that our role is to sit back and admire how cute and meaningful it all is. For her. Asking for the occasional show of hands to check if anyone in the audience feels the way she does (an identity-conflicted perfectionist), in no way changes the fact that this is “The Izumi Show.”
Sure, this kind of self-centered folly can be done amusingly and well. But it requires a certain wit beyond having the ensemble dress repeatedly as the famed Kurosawa and continually produce pots of yogurt from a variety of ingeniously hidden pockets.
Even more importantly, it needs to transmit something that is — in some way — at least vaguely relatable to a sentient adult.
The problem here is, remove all the hullabaloo (dance breaks, corny humor, constant chatting with the audience) and the play is basically Izumi processing a relatively minor childhood regret through the lens of Wikipedia-level Kurosawa.
Because he is Japanese and she is Japanese-American, you might think she uses him to say something about her identity, but she is quick to disabuse this idea by claiming that she has only seen one of his films. Indeed, this kind of cutesy-clever switcheroo happens enough to lose its charm. When Izumi and Kurosawa finally “meet,” Izumi’s obvious delight in having him reveal the meaning of the yogurt — and for her to act surprised — is distinctly toe-curling. There have been too many carefully orchestrated moments for this to spark any kind of joy.
And when a whole play is presented like some kind of meta-caprice, there needs some true catharsis. Sure, Izumi tells us, finally, that she has been showing us that grief can fuel art (Kurosawa’s and her mother’s), but so what? This is hardly news. What emotive power there is comes from a brief montage of Kurosawa clips, not anything Izumi has offered, and it feels unearned.
The truth is, Akira never gets beyond the sense of indulging a dear, rather nerdy friend with a project that has yet to (and probably never should) see the light of day.
If this sounds harsh, it’s partly frustration. Izumi does surface something interesting. There are fleeting references to a much-loved but reticent mother who, unlike her daughter, perhaps never had a platform for her art (thanks to the responsibilities of family and generational sexism). This begged for more — and none of it needed to involve cosplaying Kurosawa.
Although director Aileen Wen does her best, there is a strong sense that there isn’t room for much interpretation. The ensemble is clumsily choreographed, the pacing, uneven. Although the mixed media mockups of scenes from Kurosawa are skillfully managed, in this context, they have little power.
As for the performances, Izumi does bring a certain joy, wonder and good humor to her creation and her persona is memorable. Another standout is Jihan Haddad who steps in to bring some serious charisma to her many roles. Kento Morita, delivering a beautifully inflected voice-over to the mockups and then a nicely conceived “final” Kurosawa, belongs in the play this could have been.
Although its heart is no doubt in the right place, and Izumi has something to say, this surely isn’t it.
Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt (With Live and Active Cultures) (★★☆☆☆) runs through June 16 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, 641 D St. NW. Tickets are $44 to $71. Call 202-393-3939 or visit www.woollymammoth.net.
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