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Starts August 21st @ 2:00 pm
HERE Mainstage Theater
145 Sixth Avenue, enter on Dominick Street (6th Avenue and Varick)
Hanafuda Denki was written by Shuji Terayama (1935-1983) and first performed by his theatre company Tenjo Sajiki in 1967.
French theatre director Nicolas Bataille (1926-2008) saw the performance in Tokyo in 1967 and he later said in his memoirs that it was the most exciting theatre experience of his life. Consequently, Bataille directed Hanafuda Denki for his French company and performed it at Théâtre de la Huchette in 1971. In addition to this, the play has attracted many directors and theatre creators over the years, and it has been performed repeatedly by various theatre companies. Terayama’s rhetorical words have never lost their momentum and they still have an enormous impact on today’s audiences.
The director Saori Aoki specially focused on the line by Danjuro: “Remember – No one has ever escaped death!” and she created a splendid musical play, which cleverly depicted the contradicting aspects of human life and death.
A dead man, Danjuro, was making a brusque business in the dealing of death products, while a living boy Kitaro was enjoying his life through stealing some immaterial morals from other people. Gradually the audience becomes confused as to whether Danjuro is dead or Kitaro is really the dead person while other weird zombies wage a game of tag. These people’s different ideas of life and death become chaotic, and then the audience starts to ask itself: “what is death? And what is life, anyway?”
Can you stay alive after watching this performance?
For more info, please visit http://music.geocities.jp
