boku-makuhari activities: theater reviews, impressions
"I can't put it into words."
When people watch something, particularly a play, they make an effort to understand the storyline and the situation - in other words, the tale. When viewers determine that the presenter is not responding to their efforts, they have a strong tendency to give up on seeing, listening, and feeling altogether. This process is a modern theory of audience, but it is still valid today. In fact, far from being valid, I believe it still has power and is sometimes malicious. And I confess that I, too, am exposed to this idiot's constant state in the audience, constantly going back and forth through this process, in an unstable state. "Boku no Kotobuki ni Translatable" is a masterpiece that brilliantly laughs at this. First of all, from the beginning to the middle of the film, not only is the story incomprehensible, but there is also a physiologically peculiar situation that continues. If this had been merely "something a little strange" or "a strange situation," I would have given up watching, but that was not the case. The task of desperately tracking the movements of the actors onstage, using all my intuition, was a thrill in itself, and I headed to the stage in amazement. In this state of excitement, let's confirm what slowly began to sink in. First of all, the characters mostly only assert themselves. I was first interested in these dubious self-assertions. If listening to others is a condition for dialogue, then this play is devoid of dialogue. What we find here are masochistic monologues, or murmurings, trapped in amplified paranoia and self-justification. Centering on the young man's anguished daily life, the play depicts how the world interacts with us and how this world appears distorted. What is particularly noteworthy is the fact that one young man's inflated obsession does not illuminate the world, but rather lies in the smallness and restriction it places on him; it is nothing more than that. Herein lies a new appeal. Drama has a structure in which individuals can only exist as independent individuals within a community (family or country). He mutters endlessly, and in fact, this is not his own conflict, disguised as self-assertion, but a social conflict. It is fear, hatred, and skepticism precisely because it is based on the premise that the individual does not exist in the first place. Only this skepticism keeps the self firmly in place, and in the end, he is perceived by the audience as a lonely individual. At first glance, these values may seem pathological, but when you realize their similarities to society itself, they are extremely sad and a good example of Japan today. The way he delivers dialogue, which takes the bloated muttering and makes the audience laugh, can only be described as Iwasaki's genius. How he will develop this talent in the future remains to be seen, but there is no need to worry; I am confident that it will become well known within the next four productions. Miura Motoi (Director)
The characters are portrayed in an extremely thrilling way, living out seemingly mundane everyday lives. As the title "I Can't Put It Into Words" suggests, the drama of everyday life unfolds in a somewhat mysterious way. From within, the pathological aspects of human daily life are casually exposed. The title is alive and well, and the way the story unfolds, revealing something "I Can't Put It Into Words," is brilliant. This work, which incorporates suspense from a new angle for theater, can in a sense be described as an extremely unique challenge to the genre. Shimizu Kunio (Playwright)
"In 2004, I was normal."
"In 2004, I was normal."
What made a strong impression on me about this play was the excessiveness of the set design. Rather than decorating the stage, it felt more like an art installation that confines the content of the play. The setting is a room shared by the residents of an apartment building, but the toilet is exposed at the front of the stage at the back, a huge duct runs through the ceiling, there's a cave-like storage room, the hallway is longer than necessary, and there's a hole in the floor filled with tissues. The residents are a man selling special water and a woman who appears to be an office worker. Those coming in and out of the room are the man's friend, his Korean girlfriend, and a man who, for some reason, lives in the storage room. All are unremarkable people, barely making a living at the bottom of society. The salesman has a bruise on his penis and is constantly touching his crotch. Negative events occur intermittently in the room, but the individual characters' desperate self-assertion, driven by their own conflicts, against the backdrop of a strong scenography, barely brings the stage to life, clearly ensuring a unique sense of realism. This reality is probably the essence of "I'm normal," imprinted with the year 2004. Defying the pressure of an arrogant "normal" as a weakly based standard, the normal of my existence in 2004 was made clear as an installation, making the work interesting to look at and, more than anything, transforming the concept of "normal." Each "me" in 2004 was "normal." Emori Morio (critic)
"An annoying evening"
"The Witch of the Tip"
"The best foreplay"
I went to see a performance of "Annoying Evening" in the winter of last year. There was a desk in front of the cafe where the play was set, apparently the reception desk, where a bespectacled boy sat. I immediately recognized him as Yuji Iwasaki, the playwright and director of the troupe. I'd always known him as a charming actor in Seinendan's plays, but I was surprised by the extremely aggressive writing in the pamphlet for the performance, written by the good-natured receptionist. "Servitude is evil. Being timid is completely unacceptable. It's good to sincerely apologize for things, but sulking in front of someone without a moment's hesitation is evil." Written in such a definitive manner, it was a scathing criticism of the vague type of person who struggles to accurately analyze the facts. As someone like myself, I blushed. However, I was relieved to hear the final line: "I, without a doubt, am a naive and servile person." It was a comrade! And so the play began. It was about a married couple. The husband had put on his wife's bra without permission. The husband, unable to feel his wife's love, weeps for a love that has no outlet. The wife looks at him with contempt. There are people who refuse to hold back. Emotions were not meant to be imposed on others, but were vividly present on stage as a cry of the heartfelt desire to live as oneself. "Why are you living with such a know-it-all attitude? Your mind is more cluttered and obscene," I thought, deeply moving. And then I realized the meaning of "subservience" written in the pamphlet that day. The indelible sense of discomfort and discomfort we all experience today can sometimes make people subservient, but perhaps Iwasaki accepts this, even while finding it unpleasant. Perhaps this acceptance is what his theater is all about. In the next performance, "The Greatest Foreplay," people struggled with the love they could not contain. The cafe was filled with a sense of certainty that everything was not a mistake, and it nearly burst at the seams. I had the opportunity to attend a rehearsal for a reading of this work, which won the Kanagawa Drama Award. The woman who lost her love says, "I have nothing. I don't want anything, I don't have any hopes. (Omitted) I don't have any feelings of my own anywhere..." As I spoke the lines, I knew those words were surely a lie. An affirmation that somewhere there is a part of me that tells lies. I am never ceased to be drawn to Iwasaki's "absence of lies." Kasagi Izumi (Playwright, Director, Actor)
"The Witch of the Tip"
The theater seats just 25 people, and the cafe's furniture, restroom, and kitchen are used as stage props. The setting is a house in a provincial town. The town's only local landmark is a crematorium with an unusually tall chimney. The sister of the young man who cares for the house returns home after seven years abroad. Upon returning, she finds her brother living with a young yakuza gangster, a female friend with whom he had a sexual relationship in the past, and a high school runaway "witch" staying at the house, often frequented by a high school classical literature teacher who is bewitched by her. The female friend tells her, "We're fine! We're just a little more complicated than normal," but they also seem like broken people. Just as terms like "gay" and "lesbian" are out of the question, the sexual bonds between men and men and women are natural, and even in the small space, the scenes are not risqué. Even at close range, a teacher happily hanging out a young girl's panties and bra on a clothesline in the center of the stage does not provoke the audience into joining in. The theatrical world maintains a firm distance even when up close. Various aspects of seemingly irreconcilable, twisted human relationships flicker, but the characters have clear contours, and their conversations hint at a hidden questioning of the very nature of their existence. This, combined with the appearance of everyday life, creates suspense. Iwasaki is astonishingly adept at shifting the intensity of scenes, from the ups and downs of small events, to the comings and goings of characters, to the commotion in unseen back rooms. It's a wonder that Iwasaki's deeply personal thoughts coexist with a theatrical quality. Though the actors are mostly unknown, they grasped the sparks of their characters from the text and each brought their character to life realistically. However, the girl's devilishness is somewhat stereotypical, and the image of her climbing the chimney at the end doesn't organically build up from the overall play. Iwasaki's talent, which has cleverly transformed the setting of a coffee shop into the interior of a detached house, imprints in the hearts of his customers the reality of human existence, where people seek salvation and connection in sex and the body as the only certainty of their loneliness and anxiety about life, gives us great hope for the future. Emori Morio (critic)
"Sleep Insider"
Episode 1: "Sleep Insider"
Episode 2: Philosopher's Hill
The stage. The floor is covered in an octagonal fabric. At the front, part of the wall is hooped like the inside of a barrel. In the center is a food delivery door, not a dumbwaiter. Men and women wait at the back of the octagon like a sentry. The story transcends the octagon's confines, without any restrictions. The story. Divided into two parts, clearly connected like a dream. One man is imprisoned, or perhaps he is binding those around him; he can't go anywhere. He counts the days of his escape by feel. A new girl arrives. The two pretend to be others, and eventually begin to expose each other. The second half. A woman with a hammer lies beside the fallen man. A man arrives, having lost himself while searching for his friend. The man and woman, and the man, who may or may not be alive, begin to recount their memories. The woman suddenly says she can't smell herself. It's raining, but the weather is nice. There are three people, but no one is there. A psychological strip show from which you cannot rest easy. People who are imprisoned and bound by self-deception and self-preservation meet and mercilessly battle each other. Coldly, but with fear and what is it called love. The audience is exposed to a situation where delusion, reality, and lies are unclear, and there is no vehicle called a story. Will they stay on the shore, or step out into the deep sea, peeking through the churning waves? They must question themselves, transcending the distance from ordinary theater and their own daily lives. This is the plot that captivates me. Not made for show or whimsy, Iwasaki Yuji's play hits you hard. The direction is centered around hardcore dialogue. The hidden ideas, such as crawling under the floor or six-story room, and making ominous noises in the side room, are mysterious and fascinating.
Bokmak-style "Straightforward Introduction to Acting Workshop"
◆Excerpts from the WS Survey◆ ・My confidence level (self-understanding) has skyrocketed! (Woman) ・I feel like the idea of "acting" has suddenly become easier for me. (Man) ・I learned techniques and at the same time, it felt like I was receiving counseling for my troubled past. (Man) ・I felt like I was given the tools to release something that had been building up inside me. (Man)