It was a story whose themes of responsibility and social duty would appeal to the transplanted Japanese audience. But it was also a story with enough of a romantic twist to satisfy their desire for intrigue. I first encountered this novel when I was twelve; I surprised a classmate who was crying over a book on his stoop one afternoon as I passed him on my way home from school. After teasing him for his sensitivity, I asked what was having such a deep effect on him. He wordlessly handed over the book, and I started reading it right there, so engrossed in the story of young Officer Kubota that I forgot my friend was present. Later, after he finished the book, he passed it on to me. Because my family would have disapproved of me reading something so frivolous as a novel, I kept the book out in the chicken coop and read it in bits when I went out to feed the animals. For several days, when I came back into the house, it was obvious I had been crying, until one day my mother looked at me and shook her head. “Jun-chan, you are growing too attached to the chickens. Don’t mourn for them. We may have to kill them soon, but I promise there will always be more.”
This novel had a tremendous effect on me—indeed, I could go so far as to say that it ignited my love for the arts— and it was one of the few items I had brought from Japan that was not a strict necessity. I had playacted all the parts as a boy hundreds of times, and knew almost every line in the book. It was clear to me that this was my opportunity to really play Kubota, and I already had an actress in mind for the crucial part of Emiko, the commander’s daughter—the least terrible of the players from that night’s performance.
I explained the story line to Okamoto and saw his eyes brighten with excitement. “Young man,” he said, “you are a gift from Buddha. I hand you the fate of my theater.”
Although this may seem like a large burden to place on the shoulders of a twenty-year-old with no experience, I was—perhaps because of my youth—undaunted. In fact, I was enthused about the prospect of putting on an entire production, and after postponing my passage to Tokyo and sending a telegram to my mother, I quickly got down to business. The play was scheduled to open in exactly six weeks, but there was not yet an actual play. The novel had never been adapted—a detail I had neglected to share with Okamoto—so while I spent the evenings holding auditions and arranging the construction of the set, I passed the days furiously transforming the story of Kubota into the dialogue and stage directions of a play. This could have been tedious work, but since I had committed nearly the entire book to memory, and was energized by the prospect of bringing it to an audience, the hours flew quickly by. Within two weeks, the transformation was complete, and after four more frantic weeks of set design, fittings, advertisements, and rehearsals, the play opened on a Friday in the June of 1911.
The first night’s performance had sold out quickly, partly because my challenge to Okamoto had become public knowledge, and partly because the family of John Yamada, who played Kubota’s best friend, had ensured that all their friends were in attendance. I remember gazing out of the wings at the crowded theater and wondering if I had been mad; wondering how I had ever thought that someone like me could come from nowhere and put on a play. I was anxious now—we all were—and I remained nervous through the raising of the curtain, through a moment of feeling naked when I first walked out on stage, and through the delivery of my first several lines, which suddenly seemed trite and inadequate. But soon enough, as I concentrated on how Kubota was feeling during his first chance meeting with Emiko, I forgot the people in the audience altogether. The only person in the world was the admiral’s daughter, played well by Midori Hata—and as I stopped worrying about the reactions of the audience, I could feel them engaging in the story. Near the end of the first act, when Kubota confesses his love, he impulsively grasps Emiko’s hand—and as we touched, I heard a gasp rise from the audience. We had captured them completely. The rest of the play went smoothly, with only a few hardly noticeable errors, and after it ended to thunderous applause, the audience brought us back four times for curtain calls. It was a triumph of the highest order. And I remember looking out at the standing, cheering audience; at the beaming faces of my fellow players, and thinking, It was I who made this happen. And I realized at that moment that the course of my life had suddenly, irrevocably changed.
The Indifferent Sea earned a rave review in the Japanese newspaper, the Rafu Shimpo. The second night sold out, and also the third, and so Okamoto added another week to its original
