Winds of Change

I was sitting in my seat at the American Place Theatre when I noticed the woman next to me scribbling Asian characters on a notepad.

This was 1999 and I was attending a performance of The Winds of God, Masayuki Imai’s astonishing play about two bargain basement comedians in modern day Japan who are hurled through time and reincarnated as kamikaze pilots in the waning days of World War II.

Imai was the author, star, and director of the show, and he was brilliant in every category.

Beautifully staged, The Winds of God is a powerful statement about the scourge of war and the curse of fanaticism that drives men to blindly throw their lives away for meaningless causes.

Covid-19 has brought the curtain down on theater as we know it. I miss the plays themselves, of course, but I also miss the whole theater experience, including interacting with the other people in the audience.

I’ve always found it so easy to talk to people sitting around me in a theater and this night was no exception.

And to be honest, this woman was pretty cute and I was looking for any excuse to talk to her, horndog that I am, so seeing her making notes gave me an opportunity.

“Are you a reporter?” I asked, assuming she was a critic for a Japanese newspaper.

“No,” she said, “I’m their English instructor. None of the actors on that stage understand English—they’re all speaking their lines phonetically.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. While the actors did speak with accents, they seemed to understand what they were saying.

And they sure as hell acted that way.

This young woman—I’m so sorry that I’ve forgotten her name—told me that she attended the show every night to review their language skills and suggest ways they could improve.

“How are they doing?” I asked.

“Well,” she said after a slight pause. “They’re getting better.”

They were doing great as far as I was concerned. And Imai also used the small stage effectively to tell his story.

At one point, two characters get ready to have a foot race. I couldn’t imagine how they were going to do it without looking ridiculous.

On the Town

But just the race starts, the lights went down, a spotlight lit up the actors as they “run” in slow motion, displaying such incredible control over their muscles that it looked like a slo-mo sports clip.

At the end of the play, I told the instructor how much I had enjoyed myself and how impressed I was with Imai’s talent. And then she caught me flat footed.

“Do you want to meet him?” she asked.

Me? Meet the playwright? I was worried for a moment that I had somehow given this woman the wrong impression, making her think that I was some big media whiz, when nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

And I almost said no, as I so often do when confronted with something different. But then I figured, what the hell? She had been kind enough to make the offer, so let’s make it happen.

Imai and the rest of the cast were standing by the door, thanking and bowing to audience members as they left.

I don’t remember much of what I said to him, after all this time, beyond praising the show, but I have to say it was a real trip speaking through a translator.

And he had no trouble understanding my last question.

“Are you enjoying New York?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, nodding his head vigorously. “Much energy here.”

I thanked Imai and the translator for a great night at the theater and went home.

And just two years later New York was ripped apart by a group of fanatics who crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center. It looks like we still have a lot to learn.

In researching this post, I googled Imai’s name yesterday and I was heartbroken to learn that he died in 2015 from colorectal cancer.

He was just 54 years old.

Masayuki Imai did several revivals of The Winds of God over the years and even shot a film version in 2006.

I’ve only seen a few clips on YouTube, and while the movie version certainly looks intriguing, nothing could match the experience I had on that wonderful night.