Iizuka contemplates what is real and what is authentic in her 2001 play "36 Views". The title refers to nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai's "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji". Some of the 36 scenes are set in contemporary America while others are set in Japan several hundred years ago. A "New York Times" critic notes, 'among Ms. Iizuka's well-demonstrated ideas is that human wishes persistently obscure the truth. All by ourselves we make it tougher to know what's what.' The play is about the unexpected discovery of an 11th-century Japanese pillow book and the struggle to construct reality in the midst of the uncertainty surrounding the book's origin and authenticity. Darius Wheeler and his assistant John Bell come across revelations that conflict with their previous assumptions throughout the play and up to the very end where 'not even the context of the plot is what it seems to be.'