Far East

by A.R. Gurney

"... this poignant new play is a welcome reminder of A R Gurney's gliding dialogue and structural elegance, as well as the troubled, rueful heart that informs all his work." Ben Brantley, The New York Times "A play that does everything right. The new drama by A R Gurney looks at who Americans were in the mid-1950s-a few Americans, anyway-and how they behaved out in those vast stretches of the world over which they had sway, and what their songs and movies and slang expressions and values were. The story centers on four U S Navy people (one a Navy wife) stationed at a base in Japan in 1954 and 1955...This subtle, tender play is, I think, Gurney's best work. It's John Cheever-meets-James Michener and it's a critical elegy for a long-vanished American view of life." Donald Lyons, New York Post "It is no coincidence that the movie playing at the overseas Officer's Club in A R Gurney's new play FAR EAST, is From Here to the 1953 Pearl Harbor drama starring Burt Lancaster as a rugged Army sergeant who has a torrid affair with the restless wife of his commander ... [A] deliciously wry play ..." Amy Gamerman, The Wall Street Journal

Genres: Plays

85 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

About the author

A.R. Gurney was an American playwright and novelist.

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 4 out of 5]

No matter how hard we try, there are certain fundamental aspects of ourselves that we can't really change. This is the sad truth at the heart of Far East, a bittersweet comedy tinged with regret.

The hero of Far East is Sparky Watts, scion of a well-to-do Midwestern American family, a young naval officer stationed in Japan just after the close of the Korean War. Sparky is fresh and confident and eager: he is here to see the world and to have lots of interesting experiences: to find himself, he hopes, and as far away from his conventional, narrow-minded family as possible

Sparky is viewed with annoyance and then with avuncular bemusement by his commanding officer, a career military man named James Anderson, a pioneer flyboy grounded after the death of his son. Anderson's wife Julia also takes a very personal interest in handsome Sparky, especially when he reveals that he is in love with a Japanese woman, and that he intends to marry her. Julia is an old friend of one of Sparky's aunts, and her bitter, racist reaction to this news prompts her to inform Sparky's family of his wayward behavior.

Running parallel to the story of Sparky's Michener-esque love affair is another, sadder one, also of betrayal, involving Sparky's roommate Bob. While preparing to take a week of vacation, Bob turns over custody of some classified documents to Sparky. Sparky discovers that some items are missing; Bob eventually admits that he is being blackmailed by a man who was his lover but has turned out to be a Communist spy.