I had five words for author Mark Sakamoto following the premiere of Forgiveness at the Stratford Festival on June 18. “I’m proud of you, man.” The stage production effectively presents the full reality of the Japanese Canadian internment during the Second World War, and the full gravity of the global reality that it unfolded within, to a profound effect.
Forgiveness is playwright and actor Hiro Kanagawa’s stage adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s award-winning book of the same title, which explores both sides of Mark’s family’s history, with a focus on their wartime experiences. Like me, Mark is a Yonsei—a fourth generation Japanese Canadian—of mixed race. Hiro Kanagawa brings his exceptional talent as a playwright to the table in Forgiveness, tempered with the sensitivity of his perspective as a Shin-Nikkei; born in Japan and raised in the U.S. and Canada, where he chose to settle. Kanagawa-san also brings his immeasurable depth as an actor to two critical roles in the opposite “sides” of the production; I barely recognized him from his stand-out work in productions like the TV drama series Shōgun.
Forgiveness features an absolutely top-notch team across the board. At the helm is another incredibly talented Canadian with global experience: the amazing and trailblazing director Stafford Arima, whose credits include directing the Japanese American incarceration musical Allegiance, starring George Takei, across 148 performances on Broadway.
I’ve spent more than 25 years as a student of Japanese Canadian history, and Mark and I go back nearly that far personally. We articled just a few months apart at the former law firm Heenan Blaikie in Toronto, and we discussed our respective Japanese Canadian family projects at that time. Mark had the rough idea for a book, contrasting the “sides” of his family story, and I had then recently shot my documentary film, Hatsumi - One Grandmother’s Journey Through the Japanese Canadian Internment and was figuring out how to cut it. Years later, Hatsumi was widely released in 2012, and Mark’s book Forgiveness was published, to great acclaim, in 2014.
But Mark isn’t one to sit on his laurels, and I’m glad he didn’t. He sought representation. Rights deals were negotiated. Funds were raised and film and stage development followed. “It’s going to be big,” he told me, with fingers crossed.
To bring the story even closer to home, support for the Stratford production was quietly helped across the line through the sponsorship of former Nikkei Voice board chair Jody Hamade and his wife, Deborah. Both were deeply affected by the production, stating, “Deb and I are thrilled to be co-sponsors of this terrific production of Forgiveness. We believe that this represents an important opportunity to present a moving Japanese Canadian story in a highly-respected theatrical venue.”
The Japanese Canadian arts community and its institutions are grateful for such support, and, wow, are they ever delivering. In June 2024, we witnessed the opening of the transcendent Japanese Canadian ballet Kimiko’s Pearl, and in April 2025, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra presented Kimiko’s Pearl: Symphonic Suite written by Kimiko’s Pearl composer Kevin Lau, drawing from the themes of the ballet score.
These are incredibly powerful productions that deliver the Japanese Canadian experience to wide audiences in deeply personal and resonant ways. They are telling the story of the Japanese Canadian community at a time that the world desperately needs to be reminded of the injustices our ancestors faced, and the perseverance and dignity with which they faced them.
Watching Forgiveness, I felt as though I was in a room eavesdropping on my family two generations ago, while also being fully immersed in the chaotic world that darkens around them, extending all the way to the world of Canadian POWs captured by the Japanese army in Hong Kong. The broad scope sets out a seemingly impossible narrative balancing act for any production, but Forgiveness achieves it with stunning coherence.
The Stratford production of Forgiveness is nothing short of a magnum opus.
The world needs to experience this production.
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Forgiveness runs at the Tom Patterson Theatre in Stratford, Ont., until Sept. 27, 2025.
© 2025 Chris Hope
