When Lisa Sanaye Dring was growing up in Hawaii, she occasionally saw sumo wrestling on television at home. “I thought it was cool,” she recalls, “but I wasn’t moved by it.”
Then in 2013, Sanaye Dring lost her mother, who had raised her children alone in a single-parent household. After the funeral, Sanaye Dring dealt with her grief by flying to Japan to trace her mother’s ancestral roots. While there, she attended a sumo tournament, and this time the experience rocked her world. She was blown away by the sport’s mix of ritual and spirituality with athleticism and commercialization, and she found that watching the matches reconnected her with memories of her mom.
Lisa Sanaye Dring, the playwright of “Sumo,” which makes its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in September 2023.
(Courtesy of Stephanie Girard)
At the time of her trip to Japan, Sanaye Dring was an actor who had given up acting. But a few years later, she started writing plays and one of them was “Sumo,” which opens in its world premiere Saturday at La Jolla Playhouse.
First workshopped in the Playhouse’s 2021 DNA New Works Series, “Sumo” is being co-produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company, a New York nonprofit dedicated to producing new works by Asian American writers. Ralph B. Peña, Ma-Yi’s producing artistic director, is directing this production, which features 10 actors and an onstage taiko drummer.
The 10-member cast of “Sumo” at La Jolla Playhouse.
(Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse)
“Sumo” is set inside an elite sumo training center in Tokyo, where six men practice, eat, love, play and ultimately fight. Newly arrived Akio is an angry and ambitious 18-year-old with a dream of becoming wealthy and famous. But the other wrestlers, including head wrestler Mitsuo, put him in his place and eventually he finds his way in the sport that in Japan is a cultural art form.
“Sumo” is Sanaye Dring’s second full-length play to make its world premiere this year. It follows on the heels of her supernatural comedy “Hungry Ghost,” which opened in August at Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles. Raised in Hawaii and Reno, and now based in L.A., Sanaye Dring says she discovered theater in high school and quickly realized it was her calling.
“I’m pretty heady and brainy and theater was a thing that asked me to be in my body and connect with people in a safe way,” she said. “I think, as with many callings, the reason you’re in it changes. I’m a person that believes in the soul and there was a thing calling me into this work that I didn’t quite understand. I don’t think I ever will.”
James Yaegashi, a Japanese cultural and martial arts consultant, rear center, observes a wrestling rehearsal for La Jolla Playhouse’s “Sumo.”
Sanaye Dring said she wants this play to tell a different kind of Asian story that celebrates Japanese culture rather than observes it through the lens of dark history.
“I feel like in many plays I’ve seen, Asian people have had to teach the larger group about our worst cultural traumas,” she said. “Those plays I’ve been moved by and they’re beautiful. But I want a play where we lead with our strength. What is it when we pursue plays with exalting ourselves? It’s not because we can survive all the bad things that happen to us, but because we are wonderful and terrible and all the things that humans are.”
Sanaye Dring recently spoke about the play. Her comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What was it about seeing sumo wrestling in Japan that inspired you to write this play?
A: I was so moved by the ritual, the grandeur, the intensity … it brought me back to life. There’s a thing about this sport in Japan that there is ritual and honor inside of it. It did the thing that really beautiful theater does. It reminded me of being an artist. In Japanese culture there’s the idea that we are the people around us and we have to give to them. I think it runs sometimes counter to the individualist notions of Western culture. In athleticism, the idea is that you must best everybody else, so what is it to be on this journey where there’s also deep surrender and emotions inside of that journey.
Q: Can you tell me more about the spiritual side of sumo?
A: Sumo was originally created to honor Shinto shrines and for a good harvest. It’s in the Kojiki, the origin myths of Japan. These two fighters, one who represented nobility and one who represented farmers, battled for the fate of Japan. So everything you see is deeply connected to ritual. Prayers are enacted before wrestlers can step into the ring. Everything you see at the top of a sumo match — how they slap their hands, move their arms up and out, stomp their feet and throw salt to cleanse the ground — all of these are deeply embedded in the practice.
Q: You said this play has helped you begin to understand men because you grew up around only women because your father was not a part of your life after a certain age.
A: I wanted so bad to love men but I was afraid of them. I still don’t think I understand men, but my relationship with men and masculinity has really blossomed in the process of doing this play. I think this play makes men brothers. I do hope that this can give these men somewhere to be and be really strong. In White society, Asian men have to prove their masculinity, but in this space (sumo), it is unquestioned. They are men. I wanted to make a space where they didn’t have to prove their humanity and can just be themselves.
Q: What has it been like seeing this play come to life in rehearsals and previews?
A: Everything is going really well. I love being in the room with everyone. It’s so special to be in spaces with my community. It’s turning out beautiful.
‘Sumo’
When: Opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 22. Showtimes, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays
Where: Mandell Weiss Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla
Tickets: $25-$64
Phone: (858) 550-1010
Online: lajollaplayhouse.org/show/sumo