Leah's Train

WHAT A TRIP Ikeda, left, runs into her past.

“Family is made, not born,” declares the prickly Ruth (Jennifer Ikeda), a young San Francisco doctor beset by personal demons and generational angst. She means that consanguinity isn’t enough; you have to work at strong connections. In Karen Hartman’s lyrical drama Leah’s Train, Ruth hits the tracks—literally and figuratively—to reclaim her past and unwittingly repair broken family bonds. That said bonds are Russian-Jewish is an important detail, and one that is easily accommodated in the National Asian American Theatre Company’s world premiere.

Nontraditional though the casting may be, the actors are solid. The pretty and poised Ikeda does her best with a shrill role that requires much hysterical overreacting. Mia Katigbak seems to have a grand time swanning about as Ruth’s selfish and immature mother, Hannah. And Louis Ozawa Changchien is coolly humorous as Ben, Ruth’s sensitive writer beau. Halfway through, the play takes a surreal, transhistorical twist when the ghost of grandmother Leah (Kristine Haruna Lee) materializes on the train that also carries Hannah, Ruth and Ben. Coincidences abound because, well, they have to for this kind of tale to achieve poetic liftoff.

Although Hartman deftly juggles timelines and dutifully orchestrates her themes, the action eventually suffers from too much wild happenstance and poignant whimsy. It doesn’t make you want to leap from the train, exactly, but it can make for a long, restless ride.

—David Cote

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