Those who missed the original Off Broadway run of the critically acclaimed play Sake with the Haiku Geisha are in for a treat. As part of its annual national conference, the JET Alumni Association’s New York chapter, with support from the Consulate-General of Japan in New York, will revive the play for a one night only performance on Friday, Aug. 13 at Manhattan’s Tinker Auditorium.

Penned by playwright Randall David Cook and featuring a cast that includes Jun Kim of Kurotama Kikaku Company, the work was debuted by the Gotham Stage Company in 2006 as an outgrowth of Sushi and Scones, an earlier one-act play written by Cook for the UK’s Dawlish Arts Festival and later produced by BBC Radio.

“Ninety percent of the play is based on true stories, and many of the lines were taken verbatim from their subjects," explained Cook. "The most outrageous things I dared not dream up; they happened.”

Sake with the Haiku Geisha consists of five interconnected short plays, all involving cross-cultural conflict among expatriates in Japan and the psychological issues confronting the main characters. It follows teachers of English in Japan and Japanese nationals that deal with the pressures, fears and insecurities of being different in an insular society.

“The play examines internationalization at the most basic of levels, and anyone who's lived in Japan will identify and understand the challenges between the gaijin (foreign) characters and their Japanese hosts,” said the South Carolina native, who worked in Japan for two years on the JET Program as a teacher in Fukui Prefecture.

“I used the classic Noh structure (opening ceremony, five short plays, and closing ceremony) very liberally to try to capture what it was like living in Japan in the early ’90s,” he said.

The New York Times concurred, hailing it as “an often observant, witty evening about the ways in which other cultures can unexpectedly impinge on our own individual experience.” CurtainUp called it “an intriguing play that dramatizes cultural fusion and collision in generally interesting and rewarding ways.”

For this special reading of Sake with the Haiku Geisha, Cook hopes to connect with a new audience both intrigued and inspired by the dichotomy between Eastern and Western culture.

*My dream is for the play to be produced in Japan one day,” he said. “And until then, I'd love to see other productions of the play beyond New York.”

Sake with the Haiku Geisha bows Friday, Aug. 13 at 8:30 p.m. at the Tinker Auditorium, 22 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $5 advance ($10 at the door day of show) for JET Alumni Association members, and $10 in advance ($15 at the door day of show) for friends of JET. For more information, call (212) 355-6100 or visit http://jetaany.org/2010/08/06/sake-with-the-haiku-geisha-play-reading to purchase tickets.

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