夜中の犬に起こった奇妙な事件 (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night)

4/19/14 (Sat), Tokyo

I had seen the London production last year (just a few weeks before the roof came crashing down during a performance) and was interested in seeing how the Japanese would approach the piece, especially in this much smaller space. Tickets were hard to come by because of the star, Morita Go, the idol singer who was so good in Kinkakuji a few years back.

The production was absolutely superb, making an equally compelling case for the material as in London. One excellent touch was the shift of the action from England to Japan – Christopher became Yukito, the trip from Swindon-London was Shizuoka-Tokyo, A-level exams became some sort of equivalent Japanese test and so on. The material was adapted so deftly that it didn’t feel at all like a foreign work, and it allowed the actors to behave normally instead of contorting themselves kabuki-like into their image of a Westerner. This approach is done at times for the classics, especially Shakespeare, but not enough for contemporary works. I hope this becomes a trend. Continue reading →