Tea

Tea is famous for its healing qualities, full of antioxidants and other healthy things. It is also famous as an excuse for socialising, whether for high tea in England or tea parties at the Plaza. But in Velina Hasu Houston's 1987 play Tea, the eponymous drink serves both purposes, bringing four Japanese women together to heal their wounds after a fifth commits suicide and helping them reflect on their lives and identities. The play is currently enjoying its first major revival in many years at Pan Asian Reperatory, directed by Tina Chen.

Inspired by the rarely-discussed lives of Japanese "war brides," the lyrical and dreamlike play flows like water through the lives of five women who gave up their lives after WWII to come to America with the servicemen they loved. Condemned to isolation in the most remote Army bases, the women struggle to simultaneously hold on to their past identities while adapting to their new world, caught somewhere in between. Some make the best of it, while others suffer, but all of them struggle in their own ways.

The play, as written, is lyrical and lovely, and every role is a great test for any actress: each performer must also play, at various points, her own husband and her own daughter-- and make these representations believable. Unfortunately, under Chen's direction, this production never quite matches the lyricism of the script. Long pauses drag on for no apparent reason, letting tension and other emotions drift away. The actresses, when playing their husbands and daughters, seem directed to play each role in the exact same way, making the characters indistinguisable. One of the great beauties of this play is how vivid and unique it makes the women and their families. By making them all the same, the entire point is destroyed.

Likewise, the five actresses are unevenly balanced in their performances. Karen Tsen Lee, as the troubled ghost of the recent suicide, seems the most comfortable in her metaphysical role, poignantly capturing the grief of a woman who has known nothing but pain without resorting to melodrama. Ako, playing a more upper-crust character, seems much more uncomfortable in her role, struggling with her lines and the language of the play. Perhaps her awkwardness is intentional and symbolic of her character's inability to adapt to her new world, but it belies her snobbery, and leaves a gap in the fabric of the play. 

Plays like Tea are a rarity: not only well-written, but written by an American female minority about female minorities in America. This lackluster production does not do Houston's work justice, and it's a great pity. She deserves better, and so does her story.

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