‘MEDIUM’ WITH AN EASTERN FOCUS

The East West Players offered a strongly acted production of Menotti’s short opera “The Medium,” which opened Wednesday at the company’s intimate playhouse in Hollywood. Unfortunately, Mako carried though his bold staging concept with only timid realization.

Mako set the events in Nagasaki in 1946. A single, poignant program note alerted us that “After the bombing (of the city) . . . many desperate people were seeking their loved ones.” This knowledge generated enormous tension at the start, which Mako skillfully used to fill in pauses in pacing and dialogue and to underline the characters’ overwrought anxieties.

But in other respects, the concept remained external to the production. Aside from a few honorific addresses, a sake bottle, Baba’s donning a No mask for the seance or saying Buddhist prayers, nothing placed the events necessarily in Japan at all. Eastern theater techniques were never exploited. And the seance-attendees were inexplicably garbed in Western dress--and costly looking dress at that. In 1946? In bombed-out Nagasaki?

Perhaps Mako was too respectful of the original.

Generally, the principals proved stronger dramatically than vocally. Shizuko Hoshi made a formidable, imperious Baba. Elizabeth Reiko Kubota acted the role of Machiko (Monica in the original) with frail, youthful innocence.

John Miyasaki proved an achingly sympathetic, terrorized Toby.

As the trio of believers who refused to be robbed of their illusions, Rose Kane was a grieving Mrs. Goto, Richard Herkert her supportive husband, and Nancy Arnold the fragile newcomer, Mrs. Noda.

Scott Nagatani and Hope Ara-kaki offered sympathetic two-piano accompaniment, playing on somewhat muddy-sounding instruments placed behind the set.

Performances will run through May 3.