In 1937, Maui swim coach Soichi Sakamoto started to train swimmers for the 1940 Olympics. Those Games and the next Olympiad were canceled by war. Not until 1948 would he get a chance to fulfill his dream.
Writer Lee Tonouchi can relate. He wrote a play on Sakamoto’s Three Year Swim Club a few years ago but was asked to shorten it to accommodate Honolulu Theatre for Youth and other student productions.
"It was good because the play actually played … in schools all across the islands, like several thousand kids," Tonouchi said. "But it still never reached the audience I wanted to reach."
Now, after a wait not quite as long as Sakamoto’s but still long enough, Tonouchi will be realizing his dream.
The East West Players, a Los Angeles theater company considered the nation’s pre-eminent Asian-American theater group, is producing a full-length version of Tonouchi’s "Three Year Swim Club," with its mainland premiere Thursday.
The production, directed and choreographed by Keo Woolford, will run through March 11.
"It’s twice as long (now 90 minutes) and has more characters," Tonouchi said, adding that it will include hula-inspired swimming choreography. "It’s more like I envisioned it."
Tonouchi’s family is from Maui, but it was not until after he graduated from college that he heard about Sakamoto, who became known for training his charges in irrigation ditches. Sakamoto eventually became coach at the University of Hawaii and coached several champions.
"I found a book featuring prominent Japanese-Americans from Maui, and it had, like, two middle pages about him," Tonouchi said. "I was like, ‘Whaaa? This is one amazing story, brah. How come I never heard this story?’"
Tonouchi could find no one else who knew about Sakamoto. "So I figure that since I’m a writer, I gotta be the one to pass down this story," he said.
Tonouchi’s research for the play, which included interviews with Olympic gold medalist Bill Smith, who swam for Sakamoto, revealed a man who was "visionary" in his training techniques.
"To have the kids swim upstream against the resistance of the water, that was kinda crazy at the time," he said. "Back during those days, the thinking was you do weight training. That’s going to make the muscles become hard, and that’s going to be bad for swimming. He actually thought that’s good for swimming.
"He was a man of nature as well as a man of science. How he got the idea to make the kids swim upstream was because of salmon."
Tonouchi also discovered a personal connection to Sakamoto. "I found out that my grandma used to wash his laundry," he said. "She told me when he was small time, she used to wash the laundry for the Sakamoto family. Unreal."
Tim Dang, artistic producing director for East West Players, is from Hawaii, and he too had never heard about Sakamoto before. He learned of Tonouchi’s play from the company’s literary manager, Jeff Liu, who knew of the HTY production.
Dang’s $150,000 production, which stars a Hawaii-born-and-raised cast speaking pidgin, "is a visually stunning piece that incorporates a style that is Hawaii at its core but universal in its appeal in fulfilling your dreams if you go for it," he said in an email.
Tonouchi is hoping the full-length version of the play will be performed in Hawaii.
"I envisioned the play playing for people my age because, wow, people my age don’t know this story, so I wanted to share this story with my age," said Tonouchi, 39. "Maybe if it does well out there, Kumu Kahua (Theatre’s) going to want to do it here."
On the Net:
» www.eastwestplayers.org
