`Far Country' captures allure, heartbreak of Angel Island
Powerful immigration-themed drama is on stage at Berkeley Rep through April 14
When Han Sang Gee lands at Angel Island in 1909 in Lloyd Suh's haunting “The Far Country,” he knows he will have to sacrifice much of who he is as an immigrant. But he's unprepared for just how identity must be lost, how much bravery must be mustered to forge a new life in a foreign land, then and now.
Erika Chong Shuch captures the fluidity of identity in her mesmerizing movement choreography as this Pulitzer Prize-finalist play pivots through generations and cultures as the trade between China and the United States, in people and products, ebbs and flows over time, a cultural tug-of-war that reaches from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the TikTok controversy.
In its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Rep, Jennifer Chang's lyrical production distills both the terror and the mystery of the Angel Island detention center, framed by Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh's ethereal projections, standing sentinel at the gateway to the Bay Area for decades.
There are moments of abject fear as the unbreakable Gee (Feodor Chin) is badgered and belittled by his interrogators, but also moments of sublime contemplation when a young man chisels a poem into the wall to mark his 17 months of suffering on the island. He taps into a deep serenity as he joins the legions of immigrants who etch poems on the walls of the station, transforming their fear and pain into something exquisite, a memorial to a hidden chapter in history.
Sometimes referred to as the “Ellis Island of the West,” the Angel Island station detained hundreds of thousands of Asian immigrants desperate to emigrate to “the Gold Mountain” over decades. The production's evocation of the brutality of the barracks juxtaposed against the aching beauty of the poems on its walls is particularly memorable. If you have never visited the detention center, this play will compel you to do so.
If the text sometimes falls into stilted and repetitive patterns that strain the dramatic
tension, there are also moments of sheer loveliness, such as a meet-cute meets arranged marriage that's startlingly romantic.
Perhaps the most stimulating aspect of the piece is Suh's (“The Chinese Lady”) deep sense of complexity. Gee may be humiliated and mistreated by immigration officials who are casual in their bigotry, but that doesn't mean he is telling the truth. When he persuades the half-starved Low (the understated Tess Lina) to borrow from loan sharks to send her son Moon Gyet (a sensitive Tommy Bo) to America to slave away in a laundry, he knows the debt will crush her and that her son may rot for years on Angel Island, but seals the deal anyway. Chin nails the bravado of a man who refuses to succumb to his circumstances, no matter how it hurts his dignity, his integrity.
Suh also parses nuance
beautifully as Gyet woos his new bride Yuen (a charming turn by Sharon Shao) and later as she cares for the elderly Gee, offering him tea and sympathy, knowing his gifts as well as his sins.
The play's ending may feel a bit abrupt but there is still much to dwell on its depths. An elegy to the immigrant experience, once again a controversial topic in popular culture, “The Far Country” defies stereotypes in an epic journey as cultures collide and hope and regret mingle.