1 Hour Photo by Tetsuro Shigematsu humanizes Asian-Canadians
New cinematic adaption of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s award-winning play now on virtual tour
Tetsuro Shigematsu wrote 1 Hour Photo after hours of interviews at the kitchen table with Mas Yamamoto. Photo by Raymond Shum
The Cultch presents vACT (Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre)’s 1 Hour Photo by Tetsuro Shigematsu May 28 and 29 at 7:30 pm PDT and May 30 at 12 pm PDT. A live online talkback with Shigematsu follows each performance.
AFTER TETSURO SHIGEMATSU’S 1 Hour Photo premiered at the Cultch in 2017, the play won a Jessie Richardson Award for Significant Artistic Achievement and became a finalist for the 2019 Governor General’s Award for Drama. It tells the true story of Mas Yamamoto, who grew up in a fishing village on the Fraser River and was interned with his family along with thousands of other Japanese-Canadians during World War II. Yamamoto went on to help build the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line in the Canadian Arctic at the peak of the Cold War, have a family, and open a local photofinishing shop.
1 Hour Photo debuted 75 years after Japanese internment, which the federal government ordered in 1942. Now, the play is taking on new life in a cinematic version that’s on virtual tour. It comes to the Cultch May 28 to 30 after showing in other Canadian cities, then travels to Los Angeles. With hate crimes against Asian people on the rise, the story is timelier and more necessary four years after it first ran.
“Back in 2017, this was a play that I think was worthy of existing simply by virtue of the fact that here was a man’s life that so closely followed the contours of 20th century; it was a remarkable story of resilience and never giving up,” Shigematsu says in an interview with Stir. “Now in 2021, what we could have never anticipated is how much it would resonate with everything that’s happening today in regards to one of malicious side effects of this pandemic: the rise of anti-Asian violence. I think so often of these cowards who are attacking Asian people—they’re targeting Asian women, Asian elders—and I think the only way one can explain this kind of xenophobia is this is what happens when a marginalized group is dehumanized for decades or even over a century. Part of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre’s mandate is to address our invisibility on screen and on the stage. When someone looks like Mas or myself, it’s easy to ‘other’ us….When we are never seen, when our stories are never told, it makes it that much easier to be racist, to dehumanize, denigrate, or be violent toward communities like ourselves because we’re seen as less than human.
“But a story like Mas, when it [the play] begins, he’s the other: he’s a teenager, he’s incarcerated because of Pearl Harbor. As you get to know Mas in the show, by the end of it you realize wow, Mas is just like you and me,” Shigematsu says. “His heartbreak, his depression, his suicidal ideation, his sadness, and his joy, everything he’s lived… By the time the show is done, the power of his story is such that that implicit bias is mitigated.”
Shigematsu, a former writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the first person of colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada, met Yamamoto through Donna Yamamoto, Mas’s daughter and vACT’s producing artistic director. Following the loss of his own father, Shigematsu found himself yearning to hear all he could from Mas, who had become a kind a surrogate father to him. They began meeting every week—“Mondays with Mas”—Shigematsu recording dozens of hours of interviews. Some of the audio clips of Mas Yamamoto’s voice are played in the show.
Tetsuro Shigematsu says humanizing Mas Yamamoto and all Asian Canadians is crucial in combatting so much hate. Photo by Raymond Shum
1 Hour Photo followed Shigematsu’s acclaimed one-man play Empire of the Son, which explored his relationship with his own father, toured to 18 cities, and earned multiple Jessie nominations. Both plays have been published as books.
Under Yamamoto’s leadership, vAct decided to create the 1 Hour Photo theatre-film hybrid to bring the story to audiences anew in a pandemic format. Directed by Richard Wolfe, it was filmed in association with Brightlight Pictures. To give it the feel of live show, each presentation ends with a live Q&A with Shigematsu; Mas Yamamoto has joined in some of the talkbacks from his assisted-living home.
“For both Donna and myself, to see this tour going across the country, from Vancouver to Saint John’s, is a really wonderful legacy,” Shigematsu says. “I think what people are applauding is the masterpiece that is his life.
“1 Hour Photo really humanizes Mas, the Japanese Canadian community that was incarcerated, and Asians altogether I believe, which is so necessary given the hateful climate that we’re in,” he says.
The rise of racism affects Shigematsu and his family every single day. Still, he believes in the power of theatre for good.
“Of all the Asian Canadians I know, all the diasporic Asians, no one I know is surprised or shocked that people have always felt this way,” he says. “What is new is the nakedness of the aggression. This hasn’t happened within our lifetime. Anyone who’s younger than the Baby Boomer generation, we have never seen this level of violence.
‘My mother used to walk around local parks as part of her exercise,” he says. “Now she doesn’t want to do that. We live in a really nice neighbourhood…but I can’t guarantee her safety unless I’m able to accompany her. I don’t feel good about her taking those walks, either. This is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I’m hoping this piece will encourage compassion through the power of storytelling.”
For more information, see the Cultch.
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