The Teahouse of the August Moon by John Patrick

First published: 1954

First produced: 1953, at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York City

Type of plot: Comedy; satire

Time of work: The late 1940’s

Locale: Tobiki, Okinawa, Japan

Principal Characters:

• Sakini, an Okinawan interpreter
• Colonel Purdy, a literal-minded U.S. Army officer
• Sergeant Gregovich, his assistant
• Captain Fisby, a U.S. Army officer assigned to democratize Tobiki
• Captain McLean, a psychiatrist
• Lotus Blossom, an Okinawan geisha

The Play

Sakini, a middle-aged Okinawan man wearing oversized army boots and socks, sets the tone for The Teahouse of the August Moon when he greets the audience with typical Oriental formality. After examining the audience curiously, and chewing gum furiously, he stores the gum, resumes his dignified stance, and introduces himself, concluding with a bit of folk wisdom: “Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.”

Act 1 introduces Colonel Purdy, a U.S. Army officer assigned to democratize Okinawa after World War II, and Sergeant Gregovich, Purdy’s assistant. Sakini alternately serves as commentator and actor to establish Purdy’s character as a single-minded individual who only knows how to follow orders without question. Captain Fisby, a new aide assigned to Purdy, also arrives. He is in his late twenties, earnest and eager to make a good impression. Fisby has been transferred out of virtually every outfit in the army. Purdy is disappointed over the assignment of this “misfit,” but he points out that one must adjust to succeed as a soldier: When he was told to “teach these natives the meaning of Democracy,” he accepted the order without question. Fisby, formerly an associate professor of humanities, is handed Plan B for establishing an industry in Tobiki, a plan which anticipates all questions and requires no thinking to implement. He is to build a pentagon-shaped schoolhouse and organize a Women’s League for Democratic Action in Tobiki.

Sakini becomes Fisby’s interpreter, and they prepare to leave. Fisby salutes smartly and departs; Purdy searches for his adventure magazine. A jeep arrives, piled high with bundles and with an old woman sitting on top. Fisby tells Sakini to get rid of the woman, but Sakini succeeds in convincing Fisby that not only the old woman must stay, but also her daughter, her grandchildren, some goats, and finally an ancient man.

The journey—only four days on foot—takes ten days because the group is repeatedly sidetracked. Fisby cannot say no; he always succumbs to Sakini’s intervention on the Okinawans’ behalf. Arriving in Tobiki, Fisby holds a formal public meeting and receives various gifts. One gift, a lacquered cup, gives Fisby the idea of a souvenir industry for Tobiki. Then the plan for a school is explained, and, while the people like the idea of education, they want to know more about democracy. Fisby gives an unclear definition, but Sakini cleverly manages to explain things away, and the people applaud Fisby. Fisby initiates elections for public officials, but the people chosen have absolutely no experience in the areas for which they are elected. When he carries out the assignment of organizing the women’s league, Miss Higa Jiga is chosen to be the leader. At this point, a geisha girl, Lotus Blossom, is brought to Fisby. At first he vehemently tries to refuse her, but ultimately, as usual, he gives in to the wishes of the Okinawans. Soon, a group of women burst in to complain that Lotus Blossom has been given preferential treatment. A hilarious episode follows in which Fisby is pressured to obtain all kinds of cosmetics and other luxury items like Lotus Blossom has, and the women are appeased.

Lotus Blossom tries to perform as a geisha, but Fisby does not understand her true role and refuses. Finally, Sakini convinces Fisby that a geisha is not the same thing as a prostitute in the United States, and Fisby apologizes to her. A group of people come to ask that a teahouse be built. Being told that there are no provisions for one, Fisby yields to pressure to use the schoolhouse materials for building the teahouse.

A few weeks later, when Colonel Purdy calls Captain Fisby, the audience understands by the end of the conversation that Fisby has not simply adapted to the wants of the Tobiki villagers but has himself become so acculturated that virtually nothing that he set out to do has been carried out according to army regulations. As act 1 ends, Colonel Purdy is sending a psychiatrist to Tobiki to examine Captain Fisby. The psychiatrist, Captain McLean, calls on Fisby, who is dressed Okinawan style and who offers the medical corpsman all the native courtesies. McLean questions Fisby under the guise of doing an ethnological study, and gradually, McLean himself is won over to Fisby’s ways, to the utter frustration of Colonel Purdy.

Meanwhile, the plan to develop a souvenir industry fails completely. The American soldiers cannot appreciate that each cup has been handcrafted; they complain that mass-produced cups would take much less time and cost less. It develops, however, that a feasible industry is that of making sweet-potato brandy.

The setting for act 3 is the teahouse, now completed. A celebration is being held, and, lost in concentration, Fisby fails to see Colonel Purdy and Sergeant Gregovich enter. Tobiki is now a thriving, model village, but nothing has been done according to U.S. Army orders. Purdy orders an investigation by Washington bureaucracy and puts Fisby under technical arrest pending court-martial proceedings. Gregovich, however, returns from inspecting the village and congratulates Fisby on his accomplishments. Purdy persists in ordering that the teahouse be torn down and the brandy stills be destroyed. Since Lotus Blossom must leave, she and Fisby go through the imaginary ritual of drinking tea as they take their farewells. Lotus Blossom wants to go to the United States, where, she believes, “Everybody love everybody. Everybody help everybody—that’s democracy.” Fisby explains that democracy is a system, nothing more, and that the ideal and the reality are not always the same. Sakini, reassigned to Major McEvoy, begs to be allowed to remain with Fisby.

As Fisby is reflecting on what he has learned during his experience at Tobiki, Colonel Purdy appears and asks for Fisby’s help in restoring Tobiki—teahouse, brandy stills, and all. Amazed, Fisby learns that after his activities were reported to Washington, some senator decided to use Tobiki as an example of American “get-up-and-go” abroad; he is sending photographers and reporters for magazine coverage. There is mass confusion. Sakini saves the day: He has cleverly managed to keep the barrels intact, and the panels of the teahouse have been hidden away, so that rebuilding takes a matter of minutes. Even Purdy can register approval as he orders a sign naming a main street for his wife and goes with Fisby to the teahouse to have “Twenty Star” strength brandy. As the curtain falls, Sakini concludes with the saying with which he opened the play.

Dramatic Devices

From the outset of The Teahouse of the August Moon, several devices are used to make the audience transfer their thinking to Okinawa after World War II. As the curtain opens, bamboo panels suggest the Asian setting, and, although Sakini has an American face, his costume is sufficiently native for him to be accepted as Okinawan. Moreover, the fact that he is wearing ridiculously oversized army-issue shoes and socks suggests the immediate postwar setting while identifying the play as comic rather than tragic.

Sakini introduces each act by commenting to the audience on Okinawa’s record of defeat in the past and on other matters that establish the need for cross-cultural understanding. His use of folk wisdom and pseudophilosophical comments in fragmented English further make clear the bicultural nature of the play, as does the use of stereotypic motions such as bowing and hand clapping. Thus, his commentary functions as the soliloquy does in some plays.

Using something of a reversal of dramatic irony, Sakini more often than not speaks in the guise of sincerity and fact, but because he uses a fallacious line of reasoning, the audience is aware that Sakini is not naïve—quite the contrary—he employs the facade of politeness in order to state what is almost the opposite of his intended meaning. In addition to introductory comments, Sakini makes numerous asides, interpretive and amusing, that allow the audience, throughout the play, to know what he, as a defeated Okinawan, thinks of his conquerors’ customs and ways of thinking, especially those having to do with democracy, government bureaucracy, and the American military forces.

In like manner, the American occupation personnel are made to perform and to react in typical, even stereotypical, American ways. Properties such as Purdy’s magazine conform to the stereotype of the mindless enlisted man who does not really have to think as long as he obeys orders from above. The gradual acculturation that is taking place is evidenced from such things as having Captain Fisby put his cricket cage on top of official paperwork, and replacing his uniform with native Okinawan geta (wooden sandals) and kimono.

The intervals of time between scenes or acts are logical with reference to what is going on. Several days elapse to allow time for the trip to Tobiki; several weeks pass before Colonel Purdy calls Captain Fisby to receive a progress report; suitable spans of time pass before the villagers return unsuccessfully from trying to sell crafts, and time is allowed for the completion of the teahouse. Sometimes subtle devices are used to convey perceptions of the foreigner about the American. The very fact that Colonel Purdy and Captain McLean (despite his name) are quite fat suggest both the wealth and perhaps the lack of self-discipline often associated with Americans by foreigners. Likewise, the poverty of the Okinawans, by contrast, is easily perceived by the “background of sagging huts” and the fact that the Okinawans are very small.

Critical Context

By the time John Patrick wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Teahouse of the August Moon, based on Vern Sneider’s 1951 novel, he was well established as a playwright and screenwriter. His career as a dramatic author was launched with Hell Freezes Over (pr. 1935). Patrick’s next produced play, The Willow and I (pr. 1942, pb. 1943), was much admired but was not very popular. After serving as an ambulance driver with a British unit in Egypt and Syria, he drew from his military experiences to produce, in 1945, The Hasty Heart (pr., pb. 1945), a character drama involving a group of soldiers hospitalized behind the front lines. Two years later, Patrick produced a historical drama, The Story of Mary Surratt (pr., pb. 1947), which portrayed movingly the vindication of a Mrs. Surratt, who had purportedly taken part in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and was hanged before her innocence could be established. Moving to other dramatic genres, Patrick produced two light comedies: The Curious Savage (pr. 1950), about an eccentric widow who hopes to help people realize foolish dreams by investing her wealth in a Happiness Fund; and Lo and Behold! (pr. 1951), which portrays in a fantastic manner the adventures of a Nobel Prize winner who deliberately overeats and consequently dies, only to find himself plagued by a variety of ghosts in the afterworld.

Patrick returned to a military setting in 1953 with The Teahouse of the August Moon. In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for this play, he was awarded the New York Drama Critics Award and the Tony Award, among others. Several other plays appeared during the next five years: Good as Gold (pr. 1957), based on a book by Alfred Toombs; Juniper and the Pagans (pr. 1959); Everybody Loves Opal (pr. 1961, pb. 1962); and Love Is a Time of Day (pr. 1969, pb. 1970). In 1970, a rewritten version of The Teahouse of the August Moon appeared, titled Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen.

In addition to his plays, a number of Patrick’s screenplays have enjoyed considerable popularity. Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), High Society (1956), Les Girls (1957), and The World of Suzie Wong (1960) are among the most popular. Les Girls received the Screen Guild Award. It has been noted that there is a surprisingly small body of criticism on John Patrick. Reviews abound, however, to acknowledge the variety and the quality of his best work.

Sources for Further Study

Clurman, Harold. Review in The Nation 178 (May 15, 1954): 429-430.

Haily, Foster. Review in New York Times, August 14, 1955, sec. 2, p. 1.

Matlaw, Myron. “The Teahouse of the August Moon.” In Modern World Drama: An Encyclopedia. New York: Dutton, 1972.

Moe, Christian H. “John Patrick.” In Contemporary Dramatists. 4th ed. Chicago: St. James, 1988.

Shipley, Joseph J. Guide to Great Plays. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1956.

Sneider, Vern. Review in New York Times, October 11, 1953, sec. 2, p. 1.

“The Teahouse of the August Moon.” Theater Arts 37 (December, 1953): 22-24.