Renewed review resolution

Wow, it has been awhile since I last posted. Yet I have been writing my own detailed notes on shows I have seen in Kyoto and Osaka and Tokyo regularly. My interests of late: contemporary spoken drama, re-vivals of "classic" modern theatre (Kara Juro, Betsuyaku Minoru), and traditional theatre. Now, especially interested in how Noh and Kyogen have expanded their use of workshops, lecture-demonstrations and all sorts of "docking" to interact with new spectators and other genres. I will try to post at least once a week beginning April 1st--not a joke! Let's see if my new year (the year starts in April in Japan, at least for teachers and workers) resolution will last.

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An urgent appeal (駆け込み訴えKakekomi utae) by Dazai Osamu

--> 　 How close is too close? An urgent appeal ( 駆け込み訴え Kakekomi utae) by Dazai Osamu Adapted, acted and directed by Kodama Ta 　 chi 児玉泰地（役者でない） No actors https://www.facebook.com/events/283142869026661/ On April 8 2019 at the small Cafe Figaro near the University of the Arts in northeast Kyoto, a former student of mine Kodama Taichi performed a new play from his one-person series, “No actors.” I had seen a video of his earlier, absurdist actor’s nightmare play and liked its physicality and precision. I looked forward to his live performance, one that had already toured four cities and is on its way to Tokyo in the Fall. I hastily read Dazai Osamu’s short story (helpfully online in translation) before the performance. With the one drink served as part of the reasonable 1500 yen admission price, I had a ginger ale. As the dozen or so spectators entered the chandeliered, mirrored café with beautiful porcelain cups and saucers lined up, I was surpris...

Hearing/healing voices: Shamiri Azade Voicelessness at Kyoto Experiment

KYOTO EXPERIMENT · アーザーデ・シャーミーリー『Voicelessness —声なき声』 A Daughter visits her Mother in hospital. Her Mother is in a coma, and cannot speak, but the Daughter explains that she has invented a device to hear the brainwaves of the unconscious and therefore proceeds to have a conversation with the Mother. The Daughter wants to know why the Mother refused to continue to prosecute the death of her Father, the Daughter's Grandfather, fifty years ago. Yagil, a family friend and office manager had seemingly embezzled money, ruining the family business. Although the police had investigated the Father's sudden collapse and fall, they found no evidence of foul play. The Mother insists that although she, her brother and sister, suspected Yagil, they had no proof. The Daughter then reveals recovered conversations between the Mother and her Sister, and a video without sound of Yagil's visit to her house, argument with the brother over disc...

Not I transl. and dir. by Kimura Yusuke at the Theatre Lumen, Kyoto May 30 2019

--> Not I transl. and dir. by Kimura Yusuke at the Theatre Lumen, Kyoto May 30 2019 http://yusuke-kimura.net/ Samuel Beckett’s Not I is a surreal horror of a one-woman show. A Woman’s mouth only is seen, high above the stage, absurdly higher than if she were standing, framed in spotlight. As the light fades in, the sounds of her gasping, whispering, urgent voice is heard before the lights fade up on the mouth, lips painted brightly, teeth, tongue; even her throat is visible in a kind of red-grey chiaroscuro. She is speaking to herself, a stung creature, like the ox-sister Io in Euripides’ Prometheus . Words spill from her unwanted, a verbal diarrhea, before she thinks them, allowing us to see her forming the words and reacting to them in real time, reversing normal order. Each impulse, each fragment, amended or doubled-back upon, rejected or extended—returns her to a continuous loop, recurring inside her brain but vocalized for us. A silent, lonely woman su...

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