Whit K. Lee(Yip/One) in Lloyd Suh’s “The Far Country” at Berkeley Rep. Photo Credit: Kevin Berne.
In “The Far Country”, we follow the experiences of Gee, a young man from rural China, as he navigates immigration to the United States. Struggling with bureaucracies, culture shock, conflicting values, racism, hard work, ambition, and all the vicissitudes of life he is an Everyman to be reckoned with.
Lloyd Suh’s skillfully constructed script is served well by an excellent design team that captures a variety of times and places, and a company of actors who perform with impressive expertise.
Nevertheless, I found the piece somewhat impenetrable, like a still life painted by an amateur that is recognizable but lacks depth of field and subtleties of shadow and light. It’s flat, for the most part: emotionally, plotwise, and visually as well.
At times, I felt that the story was repeating itself, moving almost mechanically from point to point, determined to cover all of them, but not digging deep enough so that I cared much about the characters.
There are plenty of interesting historical details, and audiences – especially the descendants of Chinese immigrants – will be engaged, and many will care deeply.
The horror of racism and discrimination and the compromises with principle necessary for immigrants to achieve success and the loss of dignity with which they must contend are all successfully evoked in this interesting play.
The content is intense, the acting at a high level of professional competence.
So why is this review not more enthusiastic? It seemed to me that the overall presentation was strangely alienating. With the exception of a brilliant performance by Sharon Shao as a proud and loving rural mother who sacrifices for her son’s future, the characters seemed to lack depth and bordered on caricature.
There is a lot to be said for a Brechtian approach to this type of complex political and historical material, and I can see how it might work and why the director chose that path. However, it also seemed to me that the production is not fully committed to achieve an “alienation effect” (forcing the audience to separate emotionally from the content and approach it analytically) so as to be fully engaging on those terms. I’m left a bit unmoved by a piece that fails to engage me fully either intellectually or emotionally. I get the story, but the story doesn’t get to me.
In a word: I left the theatre confused.
Other reviews of this play, both the current production and previous ones have been much more enthusiastic. I can only urge you to see for yourself. At best, you may find “The Far Country,” deeply moving. At the least, you’ll find it a most unusual experience.
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Rating: ***(For an explanation of Theatrestorm’s rating scale, click here.)
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“The Far Country” by Lloyd Suh. Director: Jennifer Chang. Scenic Design: Wilson Chin. Costume Design: Minkoo Kim. Sound Design and original music: Fan Zhang. Projections: Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh. Movement: Erika Chong Shuch. Dialect Coach: Joy Lanceta Coronel.
Cast:
Moon Gyer: Tommy Bo. Gen/Three: Fedor Chin. Dean/Inspector: John Keabler. Yip/One: Whit K. Lee. Low/Two: Tess Lina. Yuen/Four: Sharon Shao. Hardiwell/INterpreter: Aaron Wilton.
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For a full schedule of the 2024 Festival, click here.
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