Kyoto performance reviews

Mikado, London Coliseum, Jonathan Miller, original director Feb 27 2008 Tradition is a funny thing. Although “only” 120 years old, the Mikado’s tradition of coy and pretty 3 girls, kimonos and large fans, scraping and kow-towing, and general simpering and mewing is dispensed with in this Mikado. Instead, “we are gentleman of Japan” is sung and actors squeeze their eyes into a slant—but they are dressed in formal 1920s tuxes and maid/bellboy uniforms of some grand, country hotel. Leads saunter in with lacrosse and tennis rackets, billiard cues and golf clubs, drink whiskey-and-waters, and furiously dust everything in sight. A cello, a grand piano, circular sofa, and large palm fronds—all in bone- white or yellow are framed by huge doors and windows. This is England in the ‘20s, not Japan in the 17th century, yet Titipu, yumyum and all the other odd names and dialogue remain the same. The effect is to have yet another layer of parody: England’s post-Imperial pomposity and corruption seen...

Well, not really Live, since Oct 12 NYC performance played a weeklong morning run at theatre from Nov 20, but still: same show, with subtitles, watched all around the world. Imagine: i could compare notes with my Mom in Miami--a month later! Actually, she told me it was gory and cacaphonoous. I found it the opposite: the complex multi-layered singing/acting/dancing/musical swirl of live opera was broken into constituent elements by the all-powerful camera. "Live" is simulated--a backstage knock and tracking shot through the backstage area to the stage preparations behind the curtain--but then the show begins and we have an other-world view. This is not a single ideal spectator's $300 box-seat, or even an orchestra seat. Instead, a series of pans, dolly-shots, close-ups of singers, and above- and below- shots of the scenes are edited into a whole. It is a tapestry of carefully considered and controlled shots that effectively tell the story--but is it the story of Salome, o...

Another warm and inspiring evening at the Iwakura Space of Heidi Durning (Fujima Kansoo) last night. To celebrate her fiftieth birthday, and her decades of dancing, Heidi performed two nights of 6 dances each--no mean feat (or feet) considering she had to send out invites, manage the box office, help people navigate, prepare aftershow snacks, and arrange for flute (Nonaka Sat) and djembe (Sun). Bravo to those who continue to stretch and push, on whatever scale in this tough, fun world of fusion theatre. Heidi opened with an   Oharame , Okame masked dance from traditional buyo. Her koshi was good, kimari were clean, and the funny yet elegant farmgirl with the puffy face came to life in the small (40-seat) home theatre. Next, the Djembe, played with feeling and variety by Ta-ken . We fell into a trancelike state of readiness.  Then Heidi appeared in FISH , this time in white with two fans, a mermaid-fish gliding serenely across the surface of her little pond. Her face now a mask, her m...

Saturday November 15 at Osaka Noh Theatre Sekine Masaru is an interesting guy. Born into a noh family and trained as an actor, he became an academic (literature) and published books on Zeami and Yeats. Returning to Waseda now teaching performance at the Liberal Arts College and Japan, he continues to build bridges with his Roma Kyogen group. Students from Italy learned Japanese through kyogen, then performed adaptations of Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost. He experimented with commedia dell'arte adaptations to the noh stage. Now he is in the midst of the ambitious Si Project, directing 4 Shakespeare tragedies interpreted with noh, kyogen, and opera techniques. Hamlet, his first outing, was a failure in my opinion. While getting an interesting melancholic Dane out Zenchiku Tadaaki, the rest of the actors stuck to their own strengths: opera, djambe African drum, and three foreign players moving in a mixed salad remarkable only for the combination rather than any inherent...