A site responsive play by Universal Limited

Co-created by Yoshie Bancroft, with contributions from Sindy Angel, Brent Hirose, Carolyn Nakagawa, Munish Sharma, and Laura Fukumoto

JAPANESE PROBLEM invites an audience into a stall, which residents have turned into a temporary home and place of wonder, as they are filled with the uncertainty of their next destination. The piece exists in the contemporary moment simultaneously, where evidence of Hastings Parks’s former tenants has been erased, where survivors are uncertain if they want their names included in a memorial; and where refugees to North America are being treated in a fashion that is terrifyingly familiar.

JAPANESE PROBLEM is a title derived from the nomenclature of WWII, but containing in it the understanding that the citizens affected at the time were neither Japanese--they were overwhelmingly legal residents/citizens of Canada, nor problematic--with zero verifiable connections to activities against Canada.

Note: Our performances on Saturday, September 30 are part of the opening of the Nikkei National Museum's Hastings Park 1942 exhibit. Opening remarks with Director-Curator Sherri Kajiwara & reception at 1pm