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    Theatre Review: The Wexner Center Brings Toshiki Okada’s Stunning God Bless Baseball to Columbus

    Fresh off a buzz-laden run at New York City’s Under the Radar festival, Toshiki Okada’sĀ God Bless Baseball, opened at the Wexner Center on Thursday. Over its hour and 40 minute run time, this jaw-dropping piece moves from a love letter to a dissection to something indescribable, as it looks at the world through the lens of baseball. The Wexner’s performance space floor is an abstracted baseball diamond with a speaker in what looks like baseball material looms over it like a monolith, like the north star, flanked by two screens that translate the Korean and Japanese dialogue spoken into both English and the other language.

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    God Bless Baseball. Photo courtesy Asian Arts Theatre (Moon So Young).
    God Bless Baseball. Photo courtesy Asian Arts Theatre (Moon So Young).

    God Bless BaseballĀ is blessed with a remarkableĀ cast: two young women (Sung Hee Wi and Aoi Nozu), confused and skeptical of the appeal of baseball; a gangly, charming young man (Yoon Jae Lee) who has a more complicated love-hate relationship with the game and, really, with his Father; the internationally famed player Ichiro Suzuki (Pijin Neji); and a voice, in English, emanating from the speaker. The piece slips with astonishing grace from broad physical comedy and witty, crackling banter, into darker, thornier territory. At its heart is a look at the disappointment and frustration of a Father, the way people try to reconcile and forgive their treatment as a child. And, by extension, the fraught relationship between Japan and Korea. The former’s lording its conquests and wealth over the latter with sharp-elbowed nudges about Japan’s professional baseball dating back to 1936 versus Korea’s 1982 and a controversial Japan win of the World Baseball Classic. Surrounding this is the condescending relationship America has to both, underlined by the English disembodied voice, part impartial, indifferent God, and part vaguely bored Father, who reminds the characters and audience that imperialism brought baseball to Asia in the first place. Along the way, it touches on the part sports play in nostalgia, the stubbornness of still referring to a team by its name you first loved them, not the new sponsor, and swings through the hope sports figures can give people asĀ they discuss the wave of players from both countries playing in the United States’ Majors, like Chan Ho Park and Hideo Nomo, especially the former’s rise to US stardom as Western bond companies downgraded South Korea’s credit rating.

    Sharp dialogue helps put this thematic material over; particularly stunning in this regard is Pijin Neji’s Ichiro played as ice-cold, endlessly confident Mephistopheles. Characters gather around him and are led even when looking ridiculous and even when he, as the future, as globalization, almost tortures them. Even Aoi Nozu’s jabs (with dazzling comic timing throughout) about his jingoism don’t derail his chest-out stance. Yoon Jae Lee has a riveting soliloquy about his father, almost coming apart at the seams. Sung Hee Wi’s almost passive character does as much with few words as anyone I’ve ever seen on a stage, her insistence on stepping outside of an umbrella’s protection even as the world comes crashing down is remarkably moving, and her frantic swinging a baseball bat at nothing, after the condescension of Ichiro’s telling her how to correct her swing in the shadow of the English voice monotonously recounting the crash of South Korea’s economy is one of my two favorite images in the show (the other I will not spoil).

    God Bless Baseball is like nothing else you’ll see in the theatre this year, it’s a moving, thoughtful, hilarious journey with DIY theatre magic to spare. It runs through February 7th with shows at 8:00pm Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday.

    For tickets and more info, visitĀ http://wexarts.org/performing-arts/toshiki-okada-god-bless-baseball

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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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