By Janet Jung

A lesson on globalism, multiculturalism, and the most important -ism of all -- humanism -- Chay Yew's A Distant Shore is must-see theater. Get educated.

A few minutes into Chay Yew's A Distant Shore, two characters from opposite worlds who under different circumstances would have never met, have a miraculous chance encounter. Zul, a South-Asian rubber plantation farmer, finds an unassuming intruder, Patricia, a wealthy, British, high-society wife, literally barefoot and pregnant, lost among his five acres of rubber trees. The farmer, who's the son of a murdered rebel, later discovers that she is the wife of the man responsible for his father's death. However, the coincidences do not stop there as the ties that bind them are fraught with secrets and lies.  But before these two strangers can become kindred spirits, they must confront society's perceptions of them. 

Patricia asks if they've met before, for he seems familiar. Zul says no, they have not and says they never would, for as their appearances clearly show, what would they have to say to each other? They soon discover their betrothed are caught in an affair and before confronting them, decide to spy together, which inevitably results in the two slowly growing to care for each other. What follows is Chay Yew's exploration of a collision of two diametric cultures, two genders, two classes set in two acts of two different time periods in South Asia. These juxtapositions reveal hyperbolic reactions as passion and rage infect lovers and rebels alike. The first act, based on Federico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding is a humanized version of a historical tale of interracial love and its entanglements. The second act embodies our current events as American corporations invade Asia through Corporate Globalization. The reincarnated versions of the characters of the first act reemerge in the second act with different identities living 80 years later but still destined the same essence and fate. Fascinating, evocative, and arresting, A Distant Shore premiered April 24 and ran through May 22 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, California. 

The clashing class systems, races and genders Chay uses to great avail showed characters that were all struggling to change -- whether it's making a difference in society in general or making a difference in their standing in society. Some yearned to move beyond their gender; some wanted to escape their tradition. Desire is at the fundamental core for all of the characters --whether it's exercised within a man and a woman in a sexual tryst or within a man's need to clear his conscience of cowardice and become a rebel again.  Although each character embodies the desire for progress and effective change, themes of déjà vu and reincarnation show that real change is the last thing that's occurring. History continues to repeat itself no matter how passionate the desire to change things.  

Beyond this intimate sphere lies a bigger exploration as Chay hints that Global Corporation is the latest reincarnation of Colonialism. Glimpses of voyeurism, D.H. Lawrence and regret pepper the play as much as the circular theme that the world is connected no matter how different superficial qualities seem. What will affect the east of the world is sure to affect the west -- such as rubber trees from the east producing products for the west like tires or condoms. Both east and west cannot survive or exist without the other.

Complex in nature, Chay Yew's story would not be as effective without the remarkable performances of all seven of the actors. All actors are forced to stretch their thespian muscle, for in a few hours, each actor is in posssession of two, sometimes three, different identities. Eric Steinberg gives a subtle but intense performance as Zul -- at first, he is the humble, good-hearted rubber tree farmer who sparks with a pregnant British socialite but stays loyal to his philandering fiancé. Then in the second act, he turns 180 degrees and plays a very charismatic, loveable gay hustler trying to earn a living, hiding his identity from his mother.

Maria Cina, reminiscent of Meryl Streep's beauty and talent, plays Patricia, a lonely, pregnant wife of the resident commissioner who finds herself in a clandestine relationship in act one, then later plays a powerful corporate executive engaged to a man who rebels against her work. Tamlyn Tomita gives an effortlessly fierce performance as Salmah -- first a passionate translator, trapped in tradition, who's having an affair with the powerful resident commissioner. In act two she finds her passion and her power in her government job while still with the same man. Esther Chae offers some of the more humorous moments in the play, only to break your heart in the end. Sometimes unrecognizable, she played several servants in the first act as a comedic catalyst while in the second act, she plays a transvestite martyr dying of AIDS who later sacrifices her life to make Zul's better.

Emily Kuroda and Nelson Mashita play more simple characters as Wardina and Sulaiman respectively in the first act only to surprise you with their dimension and sense of regret and sorrow in the second act. Wardina is the sacrificing, tired mother of Zul and widow in act one. In act two, she again plays the mother of Zul but finds herself the maid of Sulaiman, a man she used to share many passions with. Mashita plays Sulaiman, the powerful patriarch of Salmah in the first act and in the second act she plays the rebel intellectual who abandoned his beliefs for safety and later returns to his roots. Last but not least, Daniel Blinkhoff gives a solid, convincing performance as Alan, a powerful but cowardly and selfish man in the first act who is also the resident commissioner. In the second, he plays a somewhat meek journalist full of integrity and hope, only to be broken-hearted by his more powerful love. A Distant Shore is wonderfully directed by Robert Egan -- it's not hard to feel embraced and moved by these performances as they convince you that these characters live and breathe.

In addition, through a series of interfacing scenes, the stage direction keeps your eye moving and facilitates your interest. Sometimes two to three separate scenes are presented on stage at once as dialogue cuts back and forth to compelling effect. Sometimes these juxtapositions give a humorous effect, other times, one dialogue or monologue informs another to a heart-wrenching degree.

As the second act ends, Patricia and Zul meet again as strangers on a plane heading to Australia. Both feeling hope for the future as well as sorrow resulting from past events, they peer into the face of Patricia's baby, Rebecca, which also happens to be the pet name of Alan for his lover, Salmah in the first act.  So the cycle continues as the end reflects the beginning, and we're left wondering what their future in a new land will hold and if it will change their fate this time around.

Overall, this complex play is entertaining as well as informative brain candy as it forces you to decipher Chay's cubist puzzle pieces into a fascinating portrait of the world in its past and present forms. We're left with many thoughts and questions about the world and ourselves. Is the integration or intrusion of nations really for the betterment of humankind or not? Is the world capable of real change even as it seems we, the people, are doomed to live a similar fate as our ancestors? Immigration seems to be one partially effective way to alter our paths, but how will the next generation exist in a different environment? Are we really capable of a real, true change in the progress of our society? Even if it seems that change can only occur in the superficial quality of our lives, and inherently, we are doomed to live the same fate, the fight and desire for change must begin with us. And ultimately, it is up to us to decipher the notions of what it means to live in a world whose future is ruled by a class that has no roots in the past of the land they inhabit.

Click here for a description of A Distant Shore, by Chay Yew and actors Eric D. Steinberg, Emily Kuroda, and Tamlyn Tomita.

Tamlyn Tomita

Emily Kuroda

Eric D. Steinberg

Chay Yew 

Published: Thursday, June 9, 2005