Tokyo Bound

 ((Sat. (27), 4-5:10 p.m., Intl Channel Net))

By TONY SCOTT

Taped at International Channel, West L.A., by International Cable Channels Partnership Ltd. Exec producer, Rosemary F. Danon; producers, Anne Etue, Lorena Tong, Scott T. Wyskocil; director, Ned Mathers; original stage director, Etue; writer, Amy Hill; dramaturgist, Judith Nihei.
 
Cast: Amy Hill.
 

Male voice: Francois Chau.

Amy Hill, agreeable American-born Japanese/Finnish actress, wavers between amiable, poignant and funny in her autobiographic one-woman turn. Actress, Grandma on defunct "All American Girl," may overgush, but she adroitly mines a rich background for her humor. Commercial potential, though, is limited.

Play's title stems from Hill's trek to Tokyo, where she encountered Japanese traditions, Americanized Japanese customs, and other foreign modes of life. She milks a women's toilet routine, and a bathhouse seg drags on too long, but her impressions of Japanese women -- a pop singer, an escalator cleaner, a flower-arranging teacher, a TV weatherwoman -- are amusingly observed.

Hill's strained comic reminiscences, however, don't fare aswell as her observations of others' lives. Her self-joshing and nervous laughs don't work, but she triumphs with poignant material, such as the relationshiop with her limited-English lingo mother (the family teased her by trying to make her say "Phyllis Diller") and her mysterious Tokyo mother-in-law, who's neatly explained away.

Perf, onstage at L.A.'s East West Players in 1991, has appeared successfully at other theaters. Hill's ingratiating personality -- she doesn't know the meaning of bitterness -- is a major asset, and director Ned Mathers draws on her warmth.

Hill's like a new friend willing to disclose just about anything about herself as long as it might draw a smile. The anecdotes often do.

Cameras, Joe Coppola, Edgar De La Espriella, Dan Fetler, Peter Finlay; editors, Michael Newcomer, Brian Waingrow, Eric Westerlund; audio, Evan Adelmar; set design, Chris Tashima; costume design, Lydia Tanji; lighting director, Greg McArthur; music, Scott Nagatani.