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| Midori Akahane as Kayo,
Shiro Watanabe as Toshi, and Eric C. Dente as
Tai |
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Photo Credit:Maqui Tominaga |
| What makes a person choose suicide?
What alchemy transforms the hopelessness, anger, and
self-doubt that every one at some point feels into
action?
Kazuki Takase’s play Nippon Jumpers –
I Won’t Be Here Tomorrow reiterates the pattern laid
down by much of the suicide-inspired art that precedes
it, from Bob Dylan’s mournful “Ballad of Hollis Brown”
to Sophia Coppola’s film “The Virgin Suicides.” It seems
that despite many attempts, no one has very much to say
about suicide.
No one who is still alive,
anyway.
Every suicide is different, but Takase’s
work fails to find common themes that would give it
unity. The presentation of one hopeless case after
another is never a story, only a catalogue of human
frustrations and miseries. Some people find this kind of
theatrical flogging powerful and moving. I have no use
for it. The show’s upbeat, “choose life” conclusion
rings false after the preceding misery.
To make
matters more difficult, many of the suicide scenes are
bilingual, and one is entirely in Japanese. Uneducated
in Japanese as I am, I found the bilinguality by turns
bewildering and boring. To ask actors to work in a
language unfamiliar to viewers is a huge challenge, and
most of the performers in Nippon Jumpers cannot
pull it off.
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| Anna Kato as a woman,
Yuya Takagawa as a married man |
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Photo Credit:Maqui Tominaga |
| Sadly, the
subtleties that might have given meaning to Takase’s
original Tokyo production are lost on an American
viewer.
At points, the play is culturally
inappropriate. Recurring scenes of brutal and apparently
pointless sexual violence undercut the play’s depth and
seriousness. Perhaps it is a clash of cultures that
prevents me from suspending my disbelief during a scene
in which a woman starts dating a man who has just tied
up and raped her; perhaps it’s just weak writing. At
least she gives him a good scolding first.
Not
that Nippon Jumpers lacks moments of beauty and
power. The central idea of the play is that Japan’s
suicide epidemic is the result of a war between mankind
and the crows that flock in the streets of Nippon and
Shinjuku. The birds - portrayed by actors in leotards
and long white medical-looking coats - deploy powerful
and eerily corporate death squads to help those hapless
humans off themselves. It is a neat idea, and some of
the play’s best moments are when the crows, with the
grim purpose of Grecian furies, coax reluctant “jumpers”
into suicide.
While fascinating as mythic and
metaphorical figures, the crows fail as characters.
After the first few scenes, the play becomes a soap
opera about life in a crow death squad – but the crows
themselves remain mysterious and inscrutable, without
motive or history. As they become more central to the
action, they grow more trivial as personalities, until
it is easy to lose interest.
The fault is not in
the performances. Mark Hattan is exciting to watch as
the debauched old veteran Kenji; by turns smooth and
snarling, he is perfect in his nihilism. Of Nippon
Jumpers’ many killers, Kenji makes the most sense.
John S. Patterson is also striking as Gonso, the crow’s
leader – though, perhaps, just a little too human.
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| Eric C. Dente as Tai and
Kanako Tsuboi as Kana |
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Photo Credit:Maqui Tominaga |
| Among the
relatively hapless humans, who barely make an appearance
after the first half-hour, Yuwa Takagawa stands out for
his nuanced and powerful portrayals of men pushed to the
limits of endurance. His face and his gestures speak
volumes; whether he is acting in English or Japanese,
his characters’ pain requires no translation.
Yukio Tsuji’s beautiful music and Akiko
Nishijima’s lighting frame some haunting moments. Often
the music seems to comment on the action, adding the
subtle ironies that the text lacked.
But the
unifying idea of the production remains elusive. What
makes this play specifically Japanese? Language aside,
nothing makes the characters’ struggles distinct from
those of American high school students or poor workers.
At the risk of preaching morality, I must add
that the solicitous, if twisted, attentions that the
Crows lavish on the jumpers in their efforts to “close
the deal” amounts to yet another glorification of
suicide, of the “do this and you will be noticed”
variety. Perhaps we ought to let those who have chosen
to disappear do so in silence, rather than celebrating
them in art.
It may be that Japan needs artists
to address its epidemic of self-slaughter, but America
has no lack of art on the topic. Do we need another play
about suicide?
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Henry
Street Settlement |
Category:
Drama
Written by: Written by Kazuki
Takase, Translation Supported by John Patterson, Maqui
Tominaga
Directed by: Kazuki
Takase
Produced by: Theatre Japan
Productions, Inc.
Opens: June
9
Closes: June
13
Theater: Henry Street
Settlement
Address: 466 Grand St
New
York, NY
Mapquest Directions
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Tickets:
$15.00
Phone: (212)
868-4444
Online Ticketing: Smarttix
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Creative TeamWritten
by: Kazuki Takase
Directed by:
Kazuki Takase
Produced by: Theatre Japan
Productions
Light Designer: Akiko
Nishijima
Music Composer: Yukio
Tsuji
Graphic Designer: Hiromi
Park
CastJohn S. Patterson as
Gunso
Mark Hattan as Kenji
Eric C. Dente as
Tai
Kai Yew as Chisa
Yuya Takagawa as
Narrator, Salesman, Married Man
Kimiko Nakatake as
Music Instructor
Kanako Tsuboi as Kana
Anna Kato
as Young Woman
Shiro Watanabe as Jumper 1,
Toshi
Jan Mizushima as Jumper 3
Yuki Yokote as
Yasushi, Tajuki, Jumper 2
Midori Akahane as Student,
Kayo
Masako Iguchi as Student
Alessandro G.
Gerevini as Interpretere
CrewProduction
Manager:
Stage
Manager:
(other crew)
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