My friend Tomoko-san is performing in JUKAI, starting 28 September 2010, in South London at the Blue Elephant Theatre.

JUKAI was created by Theatre Témoin in Santa Cruz, CA in 2008 with actors, musicians and designers from Japan, California and London. Now the company has gathered together again to perform the London premiere in 3 weeks time.

At the base of Mount Fuji lies a stretch of forest known locally as “The Sea of Trees”. Thousands of people who have entered these woods have never been seen again. Some simply got lost. Others went in intending to disappear…

Physical theatre meets Japanese taiko drumming. JUKAI is a play of mask, dance, movement, samurai sword fighting and live music, telling a touching story of a French writer visiting Japan. Guaranteed to bring you an exciting cultural night out.

JUKAI will be performed in English. It runs from 28 September to 16 October on Tuesday to Saturday at 8 pm for 15 performances at
Blue Elephant Theatre / Nearest tube: Oval (map)

Tickets are £9.50 (£7.50 conc.; £6.50 Southwark residents and Previews)
There are free seats available for under-26s. Check with the box office, but early booking is required.

Related posts:

1. Japanese Language Theatre at The Barbican
2. Oha! Japan — Children’s theatre at The Unicorn
3. オリエンタリズム – Orientalism Club Night

Ninagawa returns to the Barbican Theatre London for 4 days in May (5th to the 8th) in what might be becoming an annual event I hope. I’ve seen the two previous productions, Coriolanus and the kabuki version of Twelfth Night. This time it’s not Shakespeare. It’s a play about the famous swordsman Musashi, the author of the Book of Five Rings.
It’ll be entirely in Japanese with English surtitles. The Japanese is usually difficult and fast, however I found the women’s voices easier to follow and it helped that I knew the English versions of both the previous plays and could even remember some speeches from Coriolanus I had memorised for an exam over 20 years ago. I must re-read Eiji Yoshikawa‘s epic novel so I can follow things a bit easier. It’s a great book, although I believe the play starts where this book ends so maybe I’ll be able to find out what happens to Otsu.
I hope for some great swordplay, the literally blood-spattering finale of Ninagawa’s Coriolanus in the manner of Kurosawa’s Sanjuro was such an impressive image. I have expectations of some skillful stagecraft.

My wife tells me the lead actors are quite famous in Japan and expects there to be lots of Japanese women there because the actor, Tatsuya Fujiwara, is a bit of a heart-throb! You might have seen him as Light in DeathNote. It’s only playing for 4 days and when I booked tickets last night, all the cheap seats were unavailable and a fair amount of the stalls and circle were sold as well. So available seats are from ￡28 to ￡40.

The cheap seats might still be available as freebies if you are under 25 as part of Barbican’s free-B events

Review of the production in Japan.

image from kirainet’s flickr photostream used under creative commons license

Related posts:

1. Japanese Language Theatre at The Barbican
2. Jukai 樹海 at the Blue Elephant Theatre London
3. オリエンタリズム – Orientalism Club Night

Rouge28 Theatre is presenting the final stage of Urashima Taro. This piece
combines bunraku-style puppetry, Japanese toy theatre, shadows and dramatic
acting to unfold a cruel and sinister tale inspired by an ancient Japanese myth.
It tells the story of a young fisherman who finds himself trapped by some
mysterious ladies.

We have received support from Arts Council England, UK-Japan 150, the Puppet
Centre Trust and Central School of Speech and Drama to develop this final stage
of the piece.

We will be performing Urashima Taro between mid-March and mid-April at Shunt
Lounge, Little Angel Theatre, Horse+Bamboo Theatre Centre and Central School of
Speech and Drama. You can find details bellow.

The performance at the Little Angel Theatre will be followed by a discussion
about the influence of Bunraku on contemporary British Theatre. Guest speakers
will include Nenagh Watson (former doo-cot) and Mark Down (Blind Summit).

Performances:

- Horse+Bamboo Theatre Centre in Rosendale (Lancashire) on Friday the 13th
of March at 7.30pm.

- Shunt Lounge on 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th of March and 1st, 3rd and 4th of
April at 8pm except Saturdays at 9pm. You can not book performances in advance,
all tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis.

- Little Angel Theatre on Thursday the 2nd of April at 8pm.

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links in this post are that are no longer active have been removed

Related posts:

1. Urashima Taro – Japan-UK 150
2. Chickens at Shunt
3. Jukai 樹海 at the Blue Elephant Theatre London

The first is Shun-kun 春琴 by Complicite.
The lead in Japan was Japanese actress Eri Fukatsu. I presume she reprises the role here.

The other is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by NinaGawa, Sochiku Grand Kabuki.
I have seen a previous adaptation of Coriolanus by this company and they are impressive stagings. The Japanese feels very fast, possibly because they are trying to fit in a longer text. I found the women easier to understand but I was able to follow the speeches I had learnt at school (in English). The ending was suitably manga-esgue with Coriolanus spraying red arterial blood all over the white costumes in the best tradition of a samurai duel.
This play is Twelfth Night done in the manner of Kabuki. My wife tells me the actor is a very famous Kabuki actor. Judging by the photographs the play gets the full Kabuki treatment. Niwagawa company is very famous and at the time of writing this there aren’t many seats left.

Tickets for these plays are from £10 to £40.

Related posts:

1. Ninagawa at the Barbican in May
2. Oha! Japan — Children’s theatre at The Unicorn
3. Jukai 樹海 at the Blue Elephant Theatre London