• The Animals and Children Took to the Streets

5/6/19 (Mon), Tokyo

Who knew dystopian theater could be so much fun? A rundown tenement somewhere in what looks like pre-war Europe (the creators call their group 1927, so I’ll go with that) becomes increasingly unmanageable, and the deprived children are becoming dangerously restless. A well-meaning mother brings her daughter to the area in the belief that all the kids really need is art classes and pasta sculptures. She gradually gets caught up in reality as the situation worsens and her daughter is kidnapped. The kids go a step too far when they kidnap the mayor’s cat, prompting authorities to turn to, let’s say, chemical means to quell the problem.

What could be a depressingly heavy-handed story is presented in a subversively light-hearted manner that makes its point much more subtly. The stage is a visual wonder projecting two-dimensional graphics in mainly sepia tones across three large screens, creating a combination of Brecht, Russian constructivists, Fritz Lang and Tim Burton: words literally come pouring out of the mouth of a screaming woman, a coffin with a dancing skeleton transforms into a telephone that then transforms into a crawling insect, a giant hand plucks a women into the sky and drops her. Three sad-sack actresses with white painted faces play a variety of roles throughout, mimed in one case to a toneless male voiceover. When the (real) mother brings her (video) daughter along, the line between the live and animated starts to blur. The interaction between the performers and the projections is intricately timed – tech rehearsals must have been exhausting – and beautifully realized.

Yet the extraordinary level of inventiveness never overwhelms the material. The early 20th-century (I think) setting does not dilute the show’s message or relevance in the least – I thought the sedative given the kids could be television, or these days Instagram. An intelligent show that raises the audience to its level rather than vice versa, a real rarity these days. Will keep an eye out for the next 1927 production. A big thumbs up.