The Silk Road Theatre Project presents the Midwest premiere of Phillip Kan Gotanda’s Yohen.  The Silk Road Theatre Project showcases playwrights of Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean backgrounds, whose works address themes relevant to the peoples of the Silk Road (the historical territory stretching from Japan to Italy) and their Diaspora communities.  SRTP aims to promote multi-cultural dialogue.  The project is a creative response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and the ant-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments expressed in the aftermath of the attacks.
 

Yohen considers the marriage of James, an African American World War II vet, and Sumi, his Japanese war pride.  It is 1986 in Los Angeles and after 37 years together, Sumi wants to start all over.  She kicks James out and demands James to start dating her again.
 

The tensions in their marriage reach full tilt after James retires and spends essentially every waking moment watching sports, drinking beer and occasionally visiting the local gym to regale the kids of his glorious (embellished) boxing past.  James is a simple guy while Sumi seeks change and wants to explore the world.  She shows it by quitting her secretarial job of nearly 20 years and enrolling in college full time to study art.  Yohen, a Japanese pottery term, which encompasses the beauty of errors or unintended or unpredicted acts on thrown pots, is a metaphor for the marriage of James and Sumi.  While there is something essential and sturdy, there are also things that are not quite right.
 

In addition to demanding that James court her, she demands that he change.  Ultimately, James’s changes are not quite good enough – even though he seems ultimately to be more evolved than Sumi.  Ironically, for all of Sumi’s efforts, emotionally, her changes land her right where she started.
 

On the marriage front, James is limited and seemingly hopelessly stuck in the past and his ways.  A bit boorish, yes.  A full fledged Neanderthal, no.  More importantly, James is an honorable, hard working man.  He is an appropriately proud, blue collar guy who began working at 11 years old, dropped out of high school and retired with a pension after 37 years in the Army. While James lacks sophistication and smoothness, he has an abundance of heart and love.  It is Sumi who seems self-absorbed and selfish. 
 

Sumi certainly experienced severe isolation and loneliness as a Japanese immigrant to the U.S. in the late 1940s.  Before her arrival to the U.S., self-proclaimed Japanese princess Sumi did not begin to predict the depth of American racism she was stepping into.  However, her failure to exhibit compassion for the deep disappointments James endured in the marriage is shocking.  Similarly, Sumi fails to exhibit any empathy for her husband and how the burdens of race may have affected him.  It is incredible that after nearly 40 years of marriage, the essential struggles of their relationship are only now surfacing. 
 

Sumi has a right to complain about her marital misfortunes.  However, she comes off as unappreciative of what James gave her (and gave up for her) by whisking her, a shamed, divorcee in 1940’s conformist Japan, away to a new life in America.  The play loses credibility when Sumi suggests an absolutely preposterous idea to resolve a central problem haunting their marriage.  Her suggestion suggests she has no idea what her husband of nearly 40 years is all about.
 

Yohen lacked sufficient depth and richness in its exploration of a late stage marriage in crisis as well as the complexities of race.  I primarily expected much of the latter.  The discussions of race are facile and never really go beyond the awkwardness Sumi experienced as people stared at them as an interracial couple.  Surely, there is much more to explore on that front.  The performances are strong but ultimately, the story was weak and not particularly substantial.