PLAY READING FOR 'ALL THAT REMAINS' SET FOR NATIONAL MUSEUM ON JUNE 4

A reading of Mona Z. Smith’s play "All That Remains", which tells the tale of a young Japanese American man uncovering the story of his late father, who fought as a member of the famed all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II, will be presented at the Japanese American National Museum on Saturday, June 4, beginning at 2 p.m.

The play is set in October of 1969 in the Vosges forest on the French-German border, the site of major combat for the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd R.C.T. during the war. The son travels to France and in the tradition of Japan’s ghost warrior Noh plays, encounters seven men who fought alongside his father. Wanting to solve the mystery of his father’s death during the war, he entreats the seven ghosts to take him back in time and discovers a story of friendship and betrayal, camaraderie and rivalry, courage and trauma and love and revenge.

Smith emphasized that while the play is historically based, it remains a work of fiction. Research began as far back as 1994, including work done at the Japanese American National Museum. The story of the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit for its size and in terms of length of service in the history of American armed forces, has become well known over time. Segregated by race, most of its members came from Hawai`i, where Japanese Americans lived under martial law because of the war. However, some of its members volunteered out of government-run domestic concentration camps that unconstitutionally incarcerated thousands of people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds U.S. citizens.

The characters include six Nisei soldiers from Hawai`i, one mainland Japanese American who came out of the camps and a Kibei (born in the U.S., but educated in Japan). "All That Remains" was inspired by the dreamlike ghost-warrior plays of Noh theater, especially Ikuta Atsumori by Zembo Motoyasum (1453-1532). Noh drama was perfected during the Muromachi period (1336-1568). In Noh ghost plays, a traveler asks a local to tell the story of this place. Time flows backward as the storyteller enacts a great drama; at the end, he admits he is the ghost of the hero of the tale. He recounts his glories and begs forgiveness for his mistakes. At dawn, he disappears; his visit is presented as the traveler’s dream.