Tough talk and Venetian blinds: Film noir meets theater in 'Fire in the New World'

A film noir classic insists "The Postman Always Rings Twice" but for playwright/director Rick Shiomi, it's more like three times.

"Fire in the New World," world-premiering Friday at Park Square Theatre, is his third noir-themed play about Japanese Canadian private eye Sam Shikaze, following "Yellow Fever" and "Rosie's Cafe." Sam's on the trail of Yumiko, wife of a real estate developer planning to bulldoze Vancouver's Japantown in the early '60s. Sam is investigating her disappearance, unsure if she's good or evil.

Sam is partly autobiographical; Shiomi also was an immigrant who grew up in Canada (Toronto). The first Shikaze play drew on Shiomi's feelings of alienation, as well as an acquaintance: "There was a Nisei [second generation] Japanese Canadian man I met in Vancouver. He had a dry sense of humor that reminded me of Columbo and he even looked like him. I started thinking about mystery/suspense, and detective dramas."

That thought trail led Shiomi to film noir movies of the 1940s, including "The Maltese Falcon." Usually in black and white, featuring a bevy of corrupt characters and lots of people wearing fedoras and smoking in shadows, they inspired the Shikaze plays. Although the cigarettes have disappeared in recent productions, including "Fire in the New World," you'll find all of these noir tropes in the new play:

Hard-boiled detective

It's no coincidence film noir and existentialism peaked at the same time, both emphasizing an individual trying to survive a cruel world.

"The noir world so often has the private eye who's not straight-up in high society. They're all outsiders and I said, 'That's how the Japanese Canadians always felt, like people who were marginalized or pushed around, having to struggle to survive. It was such a great match," Shiomi said.

The theater artist also grew up unsure where he fit into the white, middle-class world around him, but he finally found his own space. For Shiomi, being an observer of the dominant culture has turned out to be a superpower. For Sam, too. Like other noir detectives, Sam (played by Gregory Yang) drifts between the wealthy people who hire him and the seamy criminal underworld, beholden to neither.

"Being an outsider, you are able to see exactly how a society operates, without the blinkers of being in that privileged situation. You see how the system works because you are not part of it," Shiomi said.

Femmes fatale

Just as Lana Turner and Barbara Stanwyck wrapped dupes around their fingers in "Postman" and "Double Indemnity," leaving heroes unsure if they were being romanced or used, "Fire in the New World" has Yumiko (Anna Hashizume). But it's a different era and Shiomi hopes Yumiko raises different questions than the duplicitous dames of 80 years ago.

"She may appear to be a femme fatale but she turns out to be something very different," said Shiomi. "Where did she go? Why did she leave her husband? She's accused of stealing some money, too, so Sam has to sort through all the possibilities."

There's another woman in the show: Rosie (Alice McGlave). Like Sam, she's a Japanese Canadian who was interned in camps during World War II. She offers Sam the hope of community.

The villain

"Chinatown" and St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood echo in the melodrama that drives "Fire."

"A character by the name of Roderic Alexander (Joe Allen) is a very wealthy developer whose plans are to take over the whole Japantown area and to remove all of those people who live and work there," Shiomi said. "As we all know, there are a number of minority communities that were disrupted or removed through redevelopment projects like that."

Shadows and light

Many visuals that noir fans love will be on stage in "Fire."

"Venetian blinds are part of the set," Shiomi said. "Shadows? Yes. Alleyways? Yes. Dingy offices? Yes. They're important because what they hint at to me is class, at the less well-to-do areas of a city. Sam is not necessarily a successful private eye. He's just getting by somehow, in his small office with his makeshift furniture."

Paraphrasing the noir classic "To Have and Have Not," Sam has not. Which is another reason Shiomi thinks audiences will relate to a dude who spends his days searching for clues and chasing down thugs.

"In many ways, I wish I were more like him," Shiomi said. "There's a toughness he has, a grittiness, a worldliness that I admire."

Sam says things the rest of us only dream about, which may be the key to having a good time watching characters withstand bad times.

"I hope audiences get a glimpse of the world from a Japanese Canadian perspective," Shiomi said. "I hope they enjoy the mystery and the comedy. Noir is a fun world and, although it's unusual to mix noir and comedy, once you go with it, I think you'll have a good time."

'Fire in the New World'
Who: Written and directed by Rick Shiomi.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Nov. 6.
Where: Full Circle Theater at Park Square Theatre, 20 W. 7th Place, St. Paul.
Protocol: Masks required only at Thursday and Sunday performances.
Tickets: $16-$55, 651-291-7005 or parksquaretheatre.org.