The Huntington Theatre Company has announced the co-commission, with Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, of a new play by playwright Naomi Iizuka about Isabella Stewart Gardner and her journeys to Japan in the late 19th century. Iizuka is the author of "36 Views," which recently played the Huntington to acclaim.
           
“I’m interested in exploring the relationship between Japan and the United States during the Gilded Age, as it plays out in the relationship between Mrs. Gardner and her friend Kazuko Okakura, the Japanese art historian,” Iizuka commented.  “What drew her to the art and culture of Japan?  And, in a larger sense, what drives all of us to venture beyond our own cultures and into another?  What is gained and lost in the translation?  And what are the human consequences?”
 
Iizuka became interested in Gardner’s trips to Asia after reading the book, The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics and the Opening of Old Japan by cultural historian and Mount Holyoke College professor Christopher Benfey. 

The book outlines how well-to-do New Englanders became disillusioned by the materialism of post-Civil War America and sought inspiration from Japan, just as that country began to forge a modern state and open itself to Western visitors.  On their arduous and lengthy trips, Gardner and her traveling companions collected art and artifacts, resulting in one of the world’s finest collections of Japanese art in Boston.
 
“We are eager to work with Naomi and the Yale Rep team over the next year on this exciting project,” said Huntington Literary Manager Ilana Brownstein.  “Boston certainly has a close connection to Isabella Stewart Gardner, through the amazing museum that bears her name.  We hope to find a new perspective on Mrs. Gardner, through the cultural exchanges she forged more than 120 years ago.” Brownstein says the play is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2006.

-- OnStage Boston

04/08/05

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