Kyoto performance reviews

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 discrepancies in the books. When Yagil le

 And the winner is: the blue-haired outrageously, contagiously cute and cool Hatsunemiku? Who could compete with the long-legged, flowing pigtailed, slender-waisted animated projection? Effortless leaping from small to large screen, and even a standing Japanese screen, while the stocky middle-aged men of kabuki posed, earthbound and sweaty. Their voices, amplified to carry over the electronic/live geza/electronic sounds,  hoarse or slightly breathless could not compete with her pre-recorded sweet digital lyricism. While the plot thickened, lead actors left the stage to change costume, but Miku, effortless changing her gorgeous pastel costumes and beautifully quaffed hair (rolled into a back-bun or left dangling gaily was the bride of the ball. They had come to be in her presence, which happened to include this ancient art called "kabuki", but it was clear from the pen-lights they waved aloft and the silent cheers only she could hear why they were here.     In a reversal of no

Q Madama Butterfly Japan premiere @ Rohm Theatre:  A caterpillar pinned and wriggling: Sept 16,17 2022 https://rohmtheatrekyoto.jp/en/event/71137/ This shocking and fierce fantasy by female playwright Ichihara Satoko premiered in September 2021 in Switzerland, a collaboration of Ichihara’s Q company and the Zurich’s Neumarkt theatre, then toured Austria and German this spring. This review was written after viewing the premiere of Q Madama Butterfly in Japan at the Rohm Theatre, Kyoto on Sept 16 and 17, and chatting with some actors afterwards. There was little in the program notes or online, and I have not yet read the script (published in Mook Kotabato Vol. 3) http://www.kankanbou.com/books/kotobato/0455 so offer these immediate impressions hoping that my more experienced and fluent colleagues may correct me. As a compilation of two viewings, they are also a bit confused, stimulated but revulsed, applauding as it were with one thumb down.                                              *

Dangers of repeat informants: recycling what we know about noh (This is the beginning of a publication perhaps; I welcome feedback).  I have been ruminating on the dangers of going to the well too often when it comes to Japanese theatre research on noh performance in particular. Those "tried and true" actors who are able/willing to be interviewed, teach, and tour overseas for conferences or workshops are few and far between. Significantly, just three of them--Kongo school Udaka Michishige, Kita school Takabayashi Kouji, and Kita school Matsui Akira have been responsible for many of the articles, and dissertations, interviews, and international collaborations for over four decades. Why are these three Kansai-based performers (2 outside where iemoto and most performances take place, Tokyo), 2 first-generation actors who are relative outsiders to the main line of tradition, taken as "the gospel" of noh performance practice over multiple generations of scholars? Their p

 Candlelit Noh: Why the Blue?  Aug 16th Daimonji Noh Utoh Utoh is one of my favorite noh plays. An unusually vivid depiction by a Bird-Hunter Ghost of his double torment: inability to return or communicate with his wife and son, attacked merciless in the everlasting hell-fires of sinners. I had produced a version for Matsui Akira's Women in Circle one-man show that he toured to Europe and the U.S., using slides of Shiko Munakata's woodblock prints with translation of "Blood-birds", an early Wetherby work. Matui danced the climactic kuse powerfully, the iron claws of the giant Auk (seabird) and bloody, fatal tears of the mother shown with vigor and pathos. A laquered black sedge hat and pole his only properties, a feather-skirt and light white vest his ghostly garments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH8lm40bilw&t=56s (with Richard Emmert's chorus on tour in UK) So, I was eager to see how the head of the Kongo school would perform the piece by candlelight in

Fear of flailing?: Returning to regular blogposting August 2022 Much to my surprise, I see that I have been on hiatus for over two years. Rather than wait for a beloved sensei or mentor to pass away, I thought I would return to my initial impetus for starting this blog. I go to a lot of performances: concerts, dance, theatre, and especially kyogen. Before Covid, this would include occasional buffet feasts in San Francisco London, Bali, and New York. Since Covid this has mainly been online, and limited to Kyoto. I doubt if there is anyone else in the world with the same tastes as I: noh as a matinee, E9 little theatre experiment in the evening, research showing the next day. But although I take notes, keep programs, and file it away in my memory, I rarely commit to writing down critiques, much less posting it on a public blog. Why? I reflect here on my background in theatre reviewing, consider its technique and utility, then once again plunge back into the critical appraisals that may,

July 9th 2022    Cutting Edge 狂言: God & Demon Shigeyama kyogen youth fooling around with new kyogen and sketch comedy (performances ongoing in August ) https://kyotokyogen.com/schedule/0820cek/ Kyogen programs are usually one-time only events. Three or four plays are put together according to seasonal appropriateness and variety, as well as technical ability to change costumes and casting balance. While single kyogen are the requisite filler between the somber noh, all-kyogen programs have been an increasing part of the post-War theatrical scene. Annual family shows spotlight brothers or fathers and sons, or celebrate receiving an award or honoring an ancestor’s death anniversary. These well-publicized programs often feature rare, large-cast plays, and newly created plays that  stretch the abilities of the extended family members. Held on noh stages but also civic and prefectural halls, their leaflet designs have recently features colorful montages of photos of previous shows, prom