A fantastical, cut-throat interrogation of Japanese Americans' identity formation. Plentiful alienation devices heighten multiple dualities: trauma vs its aftermath, memory vs amnesia, fantasy vs reality, American vs Japanese...These dichotomies concentrate on the central character of Grandma. While magical and heartening, the adventure of her younger self (who is also the doppelgänger of Grandson) is fundamentally fragile and cathartic. The fantastical past intertwines with and accentuates the futility and anguish in reality. I also appreciate the play's generous and specific use of Japanese language, unveiling the exquisite tunes of Japanese culture that resist Americanization and transmute the hero's journey!

I have loved SUPPOSED HOME from the moment I first read it and my adoration for it only grew when I saw the virtual stage reading at the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. The legacy of Japanese Concentration Camps is pervasive to this day and Hamashima manages to tell a powerful and personal story about this time through a wholly theatrical lens. This play will make you laugh and cry and demands to be told on stage in front of a live audience as soon as possible.

A genre-defying, fabulistic piece that navigates a variety of theatrical styles and motifs, and issues both micro and macro level in such a compelling and engaging way. Sam Hamashima creates a distinct theatrical world and their skill in bringing together a variety of threads into a cohesive, aesthetic whole is supreme. I loved the dual narrative focus, as well, on this humorous, heightened fable-like tale from the past and a grandmother and grandson's more immediate and intimate journey through the results of generational, cultural, and familial trauma. This play begs to be staged and soon I hope!