“Surprisingly humorous and openhearted… luminous moments of youthful joy”

“In Sakata’s absorbing 90-minute account, versatile actor Joel de la Fuente portrays the late Hirabayashi from his rural Washington State boyhood, to his federal court exoneration in 1987 along with two other resisters. He was ultimately awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It’s a fascinating saga, drawing on the man’s own eloquent writings and Sakata’s extensive interviews with him and other research for the touring show.

Yet along with the appalling bigotry it re-enacts, Hold These Truths is also surprisingly humorous and openhearted.

…And Sakata etches the everyday indignities and exclusion West Coast Asian Americans endured, much like what African Americans faced in the segregated South. In one achingly ironic episode, Hirabayashi is recommended for a job in a YMCA world brotherhood program. When he turns up for an interview, his race makes him unacceptable to the project’s backers.

But luminous moments of youthful joy arise too, accentuated in Lisa Rothe’s fluid staging and Cat Tate Starmer’s sensitive lighting scheme.”

The Seattle Times
Misha Berson