Robert Meksin, Conlan Ledwith, Kiyo Takami, Brian Lee Huynh in My Man Kono (Photo: Russ Rowland)
From the silent age of cinema to the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Philip W. Chung’s play, My Man Kono, about real life figure Toraichi Kono, gives a unique perspective on Kono’s experiences being Japanese in America in the first half of the twentieth century. It’s a fascinating slice of history from a volatile era—but the play’s narrow lens on Kono and Charlie Chaplin’s working relationship and a limiting retrospective structure pushes some rich cultural history to the backend of the play.
In 1916, Toraichi Kono (Brian Lee Huynh) was hired as a driver for Charlie Chaplin (Conlan Ledwith). Over time he became indispensable to Chaplin and his job morphed into that of a personal secretary, valet, and fixer. Kono even appeared in several Chaplin films. On a trip to Japan, Chaplin narrowly escapes an assassination attempt with Kono’s help. But after falling out with the mercurial Chaplin, Kono faced deportation on allegations of being a spy for Japan just before World War II. He was interned and incarcerated through the war.
Kono’s close relationship with Chaplin had him at the center of the world managing Chaplin’s affairs (foreign and domestic, female and professional) with world dignitaries to show girls. But the minute he was no longer gatekeeper to the world’s biggest star, Kono struggled to even find work and increasingly faced even more anti-Japanese racism.
The play, structured in flashbacks, is built around Kono defending his life against these espionage charges. Kono’s attorney, Wayne Collins (Robert Meksin) tries to piece together a defense to the government’s case and to do so he draws out the story of Kono’s life from Kono.
As the audience watches Kono’s recollections, Kono refuses to reveal some facts and circumstances to his attorney. We are meant to see a man who is loyal to his friends (who may not be as loyal to him) while the American government wants to portray him as a man loyal to the Emperor of Japan.
Brian Lee Huynh, Conrad Ledwith, Jae Woo in My Man Kono (Photo: Russ Rowland)
In two hours, Chung covers a lot of events. Naturally, some elements get the short shrift. Unfortunately, Kono’s first wife Isami (Kiyo Takami) gets the worst of this. She is a critical figure in his memories but we mostly see her nagging Kono to come back home to see and care for his family while he runs around with Chaplin. Then she dies and becomes a ghost haunting him. Sadly, she is not a fully-developed character of her own.
Because of the relentless explanatory framing through the attorney (“You were about to tell me how you came to work for Chaplin”), Kono often ends up looking like more of a witness to his own life rather than the architect of it.
Jeff Liu’s production sets a documentary tone. Using blah gray walls, benches, and furniture as a blank palette, projections by Cinthia Chen establish the setting (Chaplin’s studio lot) or show what is happening in world events (Pearl Harbor) with vintage photographs, movie posters, and news footage. There are also blurred projections meant to be scenes from Chaplin films (I assume to address licensing issues). Actors, as talking heads, pop-up from the top of set from time-to-time to give voice to documents and evidence in the case. But it keeps the material academic and dry.
Chung’s play is a portrait of Kono that is in reaction to two relationships—his wife and Chaplin. Despite how central these dynamics might have been to his life, they do not provide enough drama. Ledwith is given opportunity to play the Tramp to fine effect, but it results in awkward attention pulling from Kono. With the domestic misery we see, it is hard to buy the love story aspects of Kono’s marriage.
Liu’s direction does not always steer a clear path through what are Kono’s hauntings or memories in the first act and things get muddy. But the play and the direction sharpens in the second act.
The real meat of the show comes with the hearing on deportation. Liu is working with a more concrete setting and defined opposing sides. But also Chung expands the lens and we have a window into the wider Japanese American consciousness at the time. And with it a gust of emotion fills the room. The intersection of politics and people becomes very real.
During his trial, a number of Japanese American activists come out against Kono in the press. Through this we see the immense pressure on Japanese citizens in America and Japanese Americans to capitulate with the U.S. government or demonstrate their loyalty to the US. Even Collins’ personal history as a civil rights attorney for many Japanese citizens (who were not permitted naturalize at this time) and Japanese Americans persecuted during this time-period was a glimpse into something most Americans know little about. It also gives scale to the massive deportation issues at the time (and has parallels to today).
But it made me realize how little we had heard those voices all along. Even one line of Kono shouting about how shame operates within Japanese culture is powerful when he’s being attacked by a white establishment ignorant of this. This part of the play showed the explosive potential this material has.
Huynh is a sympathetic Kono but oddly feels like he has little to do in the story of his character’s life. With a small cast, many are juggling multiple roles (and accents) here, with some standout work from Emma Kikue playing various Chaplin starlets including Paulette Goddard and a sarcastic FBI agent, and James Patrick Nelson as Albert Einstein, J. Edgar Hoover, and Agent R. Horn.
In the end, the play educates us on “what happened” to Kono. But I wished we got to know who Kono was and what he meant to others fighting similar battles. This play is a good starting place for a window on this dark chapter in American history, but there is more power to be unleashed in the telling of it.