Palo Alto Players tackle Japanese internment camps in ‘Allegiance’

For a musical that set a box-office record at the Old Globe in San Diego,
and had a run on Broadway, “Allegiance” has had remarkably few
productions.

“It’s a show that’s not done much. Ours is the sixth production,” said
Vinh Nguyen, who is directing the musical for Palo Alto Players. “It’s a
huge honor to do it.”

“Allegiance,” which runs through May 8 at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto, is inspired by memories of actor George Takei, who was the first Hikaru Sulu on “Star Trek.”

In 2008,Takei was moved to tears at a Broadway performance of “In the
Heights,” while he and husband Brad were sitting near composer Jay Kuo and
playwright Lorenzo Thione. The song that got to Takei was “Inútil” (Useless), in which the father laments that he can’t help his family as much as he would like.

Kuo, Thione and Takei got to talking about how the song made Takei recall
his days in a concentration camp for Japanese Americans during World War
II. And a musical was born.

The Bay Area premiere of “Allegiance” was in 2018 at Contra Costa Civic
Theatre in El Cerrito. Nguyen was in that show, in the pivotal role of Sammy, who wants to serve in the American military, even after being held in an American
internment camp. His wish to serve leads to familial rifts.

“I did that premiere,” said Nguyen, “then (Palo Alto Players artistic director)
Patrick Klein approached me —  ‘How do you feel about directing
“Allegiance”?’”

Nguyen was able to cast almost all Asian performers for the show. The show was close to opening night when it was shut down because of COVID-19.

Now they’re back.

“There’s something very special about coming into rehearsal with a predominately Asian cast,” said Nguyen, “telling a story about our experience.”

He doesn’t ask people for their ethnicity, Nguyen said, but took a guess
that the cast includes people of Filipino, Chinese, Vietnamese, and
Japanese heritage. Of those, three cast members — Cordelia Larsen, Ron Munekawa and Brandon Gruber — are descendants of people who were interned.

Nguyen said, “We’re doing a lot of extra work that’s not usually part of the process” of staging a show, including extreme dramaturgy, bringing in a
92-year-old survivor of the camps, visiting the Japanese American Museum
of San Jose, hiring a dialogue coach, and doing a Zoom meeting with
composer Kuo.

“The majority of show is in English,” Nguyen said. “It is a
Japanese American show. There are some Japanese words used.”

“It is a dark chapter, but in the end, it’s very uplifting, about the
resilience of the human spirit,” he added.

The forced internment of about 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage was
rooted in panic, racism and greed following the Japanese bombing of Pearl
Harbor. Families lost their homes and businesses, assets that were often taken by
investors who profited from the properties and from the loss of
competition. Some, but far fewer, German Americans and Italian Americans
were also interned during the war.

“Allegiance” ensemble member Brandon Gruber, 26, was recently joined in a
Zoom interview by his mother, Teresa, and grandmother Helen Fujishin, 93, who was a prisoner in one of the camps. Two of her brothers
joined the U.S. Army, serving in the South Pacific.

“They went willingly,” said Fujishin. “Times were different, to be so obedient. They wanted to do what was right, but not knowing any political things.”

Listening to the music of “Allegiance,” Fujishin said, “the whole thing,
stirred up a lot of memories. We must not let this be forgotten.”

Teresa Gruber is of Japanese heritage, and Brandon’s dad, Tim, is Caucasian.

“Do you think of yourself as Japanese or as Caucasian?” Teresa asked her
son during the interview.

“My brains are the Asian side,” Brandon said with a big smile. “My
Caucasian side is muscles. I’m proud of my culture, my heritage.”

Gruber, who has Down syndrome, is a remarkable young man. Marginalized
during his first three years at Aptos High, he broke out of that by becoming socially involved, becoming a nationally known student leader by his senior year, when he was elected homecoming king.

He is an artist and model who sells his artwork to help students in many
ways, from buying prom clothes for teens who can’t afford them to
establishing a scholarship fund, for “the goal of supporting self-advocates as they pursue their passion for visual and performing arts.”

“I want to give a shout out to Vinh for welcoming me to the cast,” Gruber
said. “I never thought of myself as Asian. But I felt welcome in this cast, from the first moment I walked in.”

‘ALLEGIANCE’

By Marc Acito, Jay Kuo  and Lorenzo Thione, presented by Palo Alto Players

Through: May 8

Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes, one intermission

Tickets: $10-$57, $20 for on-demand video; paplayers.org