Las Vegas performers from Japan agonize for loved ones back home

The metaphor appears early in the show. Ai and Yuki, the two Japanese stars of Zen Magic at Planet Hollywood, pour two apparently bottomless pots of water into a wooden cistern.

Like magic, neither pot ever runs dry. The cistern never fills. The water swirls and splashes and refuses to be contained.

In an interview after a recent afternoon show, the women struggled with a language barrier and raw emotions to explain how their lives were affected by Japan's triple disaster of massive earthquake, mammoth tsunami and compromised nuclear reactors, events that continue to present a clear danger to thousands of lives.

For days, neither woman could get in contact with anyone back home in Japan. Yuki was the first to hear from relatives, using the software application Skype, which allows users to make voice calls over the Internet.

"Skype is good," said Yuki, who spent the entire interview trying to hold back tears.

Ai said she sent out e-mails Friday right after hearing about the earthquake but didn't learn of her family's fate until Monday.

"I spent six hours on the telephone," said Takeomi Asakawa, the show's general manager and the interpreter for Ai and Yuki, insisting they be identified only by their stage names. "I called a lot of people in Japan, and nobody answered the telephone."

"The first thing, we went online," Ai said. "I never saw anything like it. It's hard for me to talk (about it)."

Ai and Yuki said their respective families are fine, but many of their friends and other relatives are surviving outdoors, at a shelter or worse, missing along with thousands of others.

"While we are away from Japan, we can just pray," said Ai, who indicated she and Yuki will follow the theater maxim that demands the show must go on, if for no other reason than to forget for an hour about the thousands already dead and the tens of thousands in peril.

In a classic tale of good versus evil, Ai and Yuki in Zen Magic incorporate illusions with aerial acrobatics. Their motto is "Love, Courage and Magic." The courage aspect is what motivates the women to perform in the face of the great calamity, Ai said.

"So many people have been displaced," she said. "We are trying to give people courage through our show, the people who continue to suffer from the disaster in Japan. We are compensating for our loss through the show."

Ai said she and Yuki want to return to Japan. They were last home in May and have lived in the United States for three years. They have no plans to return in the immediate future.

"We have to concentrate on performing," said Ai. The two have performed together for eight years and are considered Japan's first ladies of illusion.

"They know people are dead, they know people are suffering," said Asakawa, "and they really want to help."

Asakawa said relatives told him the situation remains grim, with thousands homeless and suffering in cold overnight temperatures. Even in parts of Asia's richest country not directly impacted, people suffer.

"The government wants to save power," he said. "It's difficult for people to get through the night when the power goes off."

Yuki winced and Ai gasped when the topic turned to the ongoing threat presented by the nuclear power plants.

"We have friends that live close to there," said Ai. "We are very concerned."

Asakawa said he flew back to Las Vegas from Tokyo the day before the 9.0 earthquake struck, triggering a tsunami and leaving huge swaths of destruction throughout northeastern Japan.

"I was lucky," he said. "I was really lucky."

Asakawa said people fear food and water shortages, but the largest concern is the potential for radiation leaks.

"Radiation is not good," he said. "People are very afraid. We are very afraid for them."

Contact Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@review
journal.com or 702-224-5512.