Tokyo Rose – Southwark Playhouse, London

Book and Lyrics: Maryhee Yoon and Cara Baldwin

Music: William Patrick Harrison

Director: Hannah Benson

Increasing representation in theatre relies on making space for new stories, performers and voices. Maryhee Yoon, Cara Baldwin and William Patrick Harrison have found a new perspective on the Second World War with their musical Tokyo Rose showing at the Southwark Playhouse, exploring the impact of Japanese-American identity. Using an all-female cast of just five performers, it is a story that offers great potential for high-stakes drama, along with explorations of patriotism and belonging.

Raised in the USA by her Japanese immigrant parents, Iva Toguri has a bright future, graduating from UCLA and destined for medical school. But when her parents insist Iva visit Japan to learn more about her heritage, the attack on Pearl Harbour changes everything. Years later, when the Americans accuse her of treason, radio broadcaster Iva must fight to clear her name and reclaim her citizenship.

There is much to admire in director Hannah Benson’s production, which uses the Southwark Playhouse auditorium to create plenty of spectacle with big dance numbers, an epic sweep across the 1930s to the 1970s and a complex international focus that travels between two warring continents. The show stages a series of impressive, coordinated set pieces, ensuring flow, movement and plenty of dazzle in what is a stylish and well-executed visual staging.

The story of Tokyo Rose is far less satisfying however, and despite a strong narrative structure that uses the 1949 treason trial as a frame from which to hang Iva’s biography, the overall effect is meandering, sometimes even confusing as to the time period and country where each scene takes place. The creators spend a long time in Act One setting the scene with detailed sections on Iva’s home life and education, but later a single line reveals the conclusion with little context or explanation as to why and how this came about.

And while we spend 2.5 hours in Iva’s company, immersed in her experiences, we learn very little about her and, in fact, she lacks agency in her own story. Events are shown to happen to her, almost by accident and so Maya Britto’s character responds passively to major events such as becoming a controversial radio star and the accusation of treachery. The elusiveness of her motivation or any sense that she actively participated in these events, shaping and determining her own actions, are frustratingly absent.

The actors are superb, and the looseness of the show never detracts from their excellent vocals and dance performances which take in influences from across musical theatre styles including Six, Evita, Dear Evan Hansen, Hamilton and jazz which Britto, Kanako Nakano, Lucy Park, Yuki Sutton, Amy Parker and Baldwin perform with a polished ease. Tokyo Rose is a little muddled and needs a trim but has a valuable story to tell from a perspective we too rarely see.

Runs until 16 October 2021