JADE HINDMON Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I’m Jade. Hindmon. Next week, La Jolla Playhouse hosts the world premiere of Sumo, a play that looks into an elite sumo training facility in Tokyo. Six men practice, live together and ultimately fight each other there. KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando speaks with playwright Lisa Sanaye Dring about out the beauty, power, and rich tradition of Japanese sumo wrestling.
BETH ACCOMANDOLisa, you have a play called Sumo. How did you decide that you wanted to write something about sumo wrestling?
LISA SANAYE DRINGWell, sumo is amazing. It was around. I’m Japanese American. Hafu. And so I had grown up and it was just sort of something that was on sometimes, and I sort of followed it, and I was like, this is amazing, when I watched it and then forgot about it when I didn’t watch it. And then I went to Japan and I saw honbasho, I saw a tournament live. And I was so entranced by the idea or the feeling of a sport being so powerful and so ferocious and so wild and then also so restrained and so filled with ceremony and honor. Like, the amount of tradition that is present in there and the amount of ritual that takes place is so different than any sport I know in America that it really messed with my paradigms. And so then I was like, wow, that’s incredible. And I just thought about it for a really long time. And then I pitched it to McDowell as a residency idea, and they picked it up and I was like, well, I guess I’m writing this play now. And I spent a winter really thinking about it and developing it in East West players, writers, group. So at the core of it, too, I felt, looking back, I think I was trying to understand men and learn how to love men and be with these people, men specifically, that I feel like I didn’t understand. And now we’re here.
BETH ACCOMANDOAnd what kind of story did you want to tell using sumo as kind of the backdrop?
LISA SANAYE DRINGI wanted to tell the story of someone who is rising to power…
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