“Salve for the weary soul as it portrays the sometimes long, but hopefully inevitable, bend toward justice”

“As a young child, a fresh-faced college student, an aging sociology professor, de la Fuente’s Hirabayashi holds a principled center, and it is that simple insistence on what is right and acting ‘as if was what should be…is’ that makes Sakata’s play so stirring.

For this current run of Hold These Truths, though, during this particular historical moment and the rhetoric surrounding it, the thought of legal internment of American citizens and the failure of institutions to live up to their founding principles does not feel removed. This does not feel like a cautionary tale of how to keep the dark times at bay, so much as an instruction manual for what to do once they have arrived. With the production’s Quaker plainness, de la Fuente’s simple and human portrayal, and Sakata’s blend of historical fact, memory, and fiction, Hold These Truths does not shy away from the inhumanity or injustice of the time, nor the baffling incongruity of the Supreme Court’s original decision in Hirabayashi’s case with the founding principles of this country. Still, though, this play can offer some salve for the weary soul as it portrays the sometimes long, but hopefully inevitable, bend toward justice.”

Twin Cities Arts Reader
Lydia Lunning