劇団バカバッドギター「伝染するラプンツェル」

無夢楼劇団(Dreamless Theatre、台湾)の主宰者C. Jan さんから劇団バカバッドギター「伝染するラプンツェル」公演(7月23-25日、新宿タイニイアリス)のレビューが届きました。筋書き、俳優の所作、演出 … “劇団バカバッドギター「伝染するラプンツェル」” の続きを読む

無夢楼劇団(Dreamless Theatre、台湾)の主宰者C. Jan さんから劇団バカバッドギター「伝染するラプンツェル」公演(7月23-25日、新宿タイニイアリス)のレビューが届きました。筋書き、俳優の所作、演出から最後のあいさつ(礼)まで、同じ演劇人の経験を基にした詳細なレポートです。


Morbid, Twisted, Wicked – Eventually Indescribable Beauty
by C. Jan (Dreamless Theatre in Taipei)

Through conversation, when we use the word ‘you’, the concept ‘you’ actually means ‘the memory memorized by you’, not your mortal flesh or beautiful face, and the way things to be memorized decides one’s personality.

Memories, sometimes equal forgetfulness, the play 「伝染するラプンツェル」 wraps the sentimental theme with spread little tizzies. At the beginning, performers wear cartoon clothes made by paper and cutely act a short part of the fairy tale, Rapunzel, unveils the main scene.

The structure of the plot is designed to be suspense drama, there is a mainly indoor scenic background and someone gets killed or injured, though the criminals all got caught at once, even themselves can’t describe the motivations. Eventually, they find out that there seem to be hypnosis, or rather, under a curse.

The first suspense is a female staff member, Rinko Saeki. After the injury event, seem to lose her mind slightly, she whispers repeatedly: Memory A and memory B…it is a theory about how things being memorized can affect the way things looked like. For example, the truth, fact or reality, is nothing but how you recall it when needed. In other words, the so-called truth can be chosen, or even delicately designed.

I like the short stories told by different roles through the play, though some may say that those are irrelative to the plots and the theme, or it is just the show time for each character. Uh, well, at least the showers on stage widely open their arms to the audience.

A ghostly role, Karasu, without a face and acting like an old-age witch, symbolizes the hypnosis and the curse. As more appearances on stage, astonishingly, the atmosphere is becoming scary and breathless.

It is not easy to deeply convince the audience that there is a ghost at live theatre; especially this is not a high-budget production. However, the director seems to reach it. At least a foreigner like me who believes in the character Karasu at the moment. The only character without a face on stage arouses me lots of imagination; morbid, twisted, wicked, eventually expresses the elegant and indescribable beauty. Interesting.

Gradually, all clues point to one of the main characters, Shigeko Shigeta. Perhaps because Karasu is part of Shigeta’s interior, she decides to chase Karasu. They have a long talk with each other. Eventually Karasu fades away to relief.

This production does his best to explore the vague part of the mind. Feeling like some scenes break my heart with theirs. It is the fragility (not weakness) courageously expressed on stage moves me. The performers are shining under the spotlight because of doubtlessness from director I suppose. Actresses and actors are trained to reach the ability to expose their deepest softness artistically to the audience, which makes the performance art.

At the bow of this play, each performer speaks the name of the role and themselves’ one by one. The illusion created in about 120 minutes may be gone by the 3 minutes bow or not.

A wonderful bow at stage won’t save a plain drama except their audience, but an inappropriate bow will drag down an excellent performance. The art about how to arrange the bow at the end of a play sometimes is even tougher than to direct the work itself.

投稿者: 北嶋孝

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