It’s hard to find reliable information on the reputation of Japanese playwright Yasuhiko Ohashi in English. According to press materials put together by the Landless Theatre company, currently staging Ohashi’s Godzilla at DCAC, the play was a huge hit in Japan when it debuted in the late 1980s. Ohashi was awarded a Kishida Kunio Award for the play, which is in fact a prestigious prize intended to recognize young Japanese playwrights who have achieved a major professional breakthrough. So if we assume that Godzilla is actually a really good play, the only conclusion one can draw from its U.S. premiere here in D.C. is that director Melissa Baughman and company are in way over their heads.

It wasn’t a good sign when the cast spent 15 minutes before the play getting the audience involved in an over-the-top send-up of Japanese TV game shows called “Kaiju”. While the skit provided a few uncomfortably funny moments, there’s nothing like needing a warm-up act to let people know you’re not entirely sure they’re going to laugh at what you’re about to do.

The story of Ohashi’s Godzilla is simple, but certainly novel enough: 18-year-old Yayoi (Kate Hundley), the outgoing but incredibly naïve eldest daughter of conservative, middle-class Japanese parents, meets and falls for Godzilla. Yes, the big scary monster Godzilla. They decide to marry, but naturally complications ensue when neither her human family nor his monster one approve of the inter-species match.