Theatre: Kafka on the Shore

Last week, I had a chance to see “Kafka on the Shore” directed by Yukio Ninagawa and enjoyed the play which condensed the original story into 185 minutes stage without losing the taste.

The beautiful Rie Miyazawa as Miss Saeki exuded a classy aura both when she performed the part of the age of 15 and 50. Nino Furuhata as Kafka did a good job performing the adolescence story of the toughest fifteen-year-old boy. Katsumi Kiba as Nakata well presented the innocent goodness of the character.

The other cast, such as Oshima, Hoshino, Miss Okamochi, Sakura, Colonel Sanders, the Feminists, the philosophy student, the cats etc. also successfully sublimated the flavour of those in the original story.

Except for some scenes such as fish falling from the sky, most of the stage sets were installed in the movable transparent acrylic cage in which illumination lamp embedded. Those helped to depict the layers of the temporal/spatial divergences and ramifications in the story.

As it is in the rainy season here, when I got out of the theatre, thunderclaps rang out followed by pouring rain. I felt that it was something like an unintended reprise of the stage.

The play ends today in Tokyo but will be in Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center, Theatre Barbican London and Lincoln Center of NYC later this year and next year.