- Taira Jo: はなれ瞽女おりん (The Blind Minstrel Orin)
10/1/17 (Sun), New National Theatre, Tokyo
The eclectic puppeteer Taira Jo is back with a series of three adult-oriented shows performed over three days. All the dramas highlight women, making for a theme of sorts, though that’s the only thing in common among them. Yesterday was Medea, a revival of the excellent production I saw some years back, and tomorrow is a piece by the aggressively avant-garde Terayama Shuji. Today’s sounded like a safer bet. This story was originally a 1974 play, which was novelized the following year and made into a film by Shinoda Masahiro in 1977 under the name “Ballad of Orin”, which I have not seen. Taira again played all the roles, helped by three hooded kurogo stagehands.
I knew nothing at all about this play, but the poster art was eye-catching, to say the least, and a bit of research indicated that it was a famous (or infamous) show by one of Brazil’s best known playwrights, Nelson Rodrigues. It also starred the great Shinobu Terajima, who was so memorable in the film Caterpillar, and Seiyo Uchino, a well known stage actor. Tickets were hard to come by, which made me all the more curious to see it. I wasn’t able to find much information on the show, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. 
sekenbanashi 