|
|
 |
|
Author
Haruki Murakami
Producer
Complicite
Director
Simon McBurney
Design
Michael Levine
Costume
Christina Cunningham
Lighting
Paul Anderson
Sound
Christopher Shutt
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Barbican
Centre
26
June - 6 July 2003 |
|
The latest offering
from Complicite is a weird and wonderful
piece based on three short stories by
Haruki Murakami. Performed mainly in
Japanese with subtitles, it is funny
and moving and uplifting and eccentric.
Simon McBurney, director of Complicite,
has spent two years devising it and
has produced a show which evokes the
spirit of Murakami's stories in hugely
entertaining fashion.
McBurney
remarks in the programme notes that
it is incredibly difficult to translate
from Japanese - not so much the words
but the different attitudes towards
silence, to space and to time. One of
the production's highlights is the exploration
of these different approaches. In the
main story, The
Elephant Vanishes,
the narrator tells us how he comes across
the story in the paper. He explains
that he is one of those people who read
every bit of the paper so it takes him
a while to get to the elephant story.
He sits at his breakfast table and proceeds
to munch on toast and sip coffee while
slowly scanning the paper. The newspaper
is projected on the wall at the back
of the stage and we sit and watch him
reading for what seems like ages but
he manages to fill the time beautifully
and the effect is hilarious.
In another
story a young husband wakes in the night
dying of starvation and finds his wife
just as hungry. As he tells us the story
he splits into two and his alter-ego,
attached to a harness, floats above
the couple commenting on their plight.
Finally the husband relates to his wife
the story of how he once raided a bakery.
We see two young hippies breaking into
the bakery demanding bread. The baker,
kneading a big white pillow, responds
by telling them they can have the bread
if they will listen to Wagner. After
a very funny debate over whether this
could be construed as work (something
they are totally against), they agree.
The baker puts on a record and in a
glorious moment, as the music soars,
we see the husband's double floating
in space.
This
is a slick and engaging production using
various different media as well as Complicite's
trademark miming to create an amazing
world. The elephant is created by using
an image of his eye on a tv screen while
four actors bent over chairs are his
feet. They move one at a time in slow
humping moves and the elephant is miraculously
real. Various scenes are filmed live
and projected on screens moving across
the stage or on the back wall, which
gives a feeling of energy and immediacy
to the proceedings.
It is
only slightly frustrating occasionally
that one is forced to read the surtitles
and miss some of the subtler action
but that is a minor scruple. The
Elephant Vanishes
is a joyous experience and once again
Complicite shows us what theatre is
all about.
Francine Brody |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
