Past productions
A Yukio Mishima double bill: Hanjo & Hell Screen
Dir Kwong Loke - Hell Screen
16 June - 4 July 2009
Oval House Theatre
Both plays are infused with a strong sense of loneliness, and the need for, pursuit and possession of love. Mishima’s characters become tragic heroes/heroines trapped inside their own desires.
Framed within the poetry of the playwright’s modern texts, derived from the constructs of Noh (a major formof classic Japanese music drama) and Kabuki (highly stylised classical Japanese dance drama), these plays explore contemporary issues which have pre-occupied us since time immemorial.
Hanjo 班女
Translated by Donald Keene
In this bittersweet story of unrequited love, the beautiful Hanako looks for her lover, Yoshio, at a train station. With an opened fan in her arms, peering into the face of every man who alights, she returns each time disappointed to her waiting-room bench. Will her lover return to her, or will she continue her lonely search. Meanwhile. Jitsuko, who bought Hanako from her geisha contract, does all she could to retain the status quo.
Hell Screen 地獄変
Yukio Mishima's adaptation of Akutagawa's short story
When Yoshihide is commissioned by the Lord Horikawa to paint Hell, he sets about having his sadistic vision recreated live before him so that he may paint it with measured strokes... Revealed in a cup of sake with a crimson maple leaf floating on it, his conceit comes with a hellish twist– causing a beautiful maiden to be roasted alive in the inferno of a falling carriage. Such is the price of true art.
Cast –
Stuart Brown; Rufus Graham; Filip Krenus; Meg Kubota; Seamus Newham; Masayo Okayasu; Ecco Shirasaka; Yuka You-Ri Yamanaka
Production team –
Set & Costume Designer: Wai-Yin Kwok
Lighting Designer: Pablo Fernandez Baz
Sound Designer: Dinah Mullen
Video Artist: James Scott
Set Builder: Richard Wagner
Costume Maker: Prudence Vonrohrbach
Production Assistant: Danilo Ananias
Choreographer for Hell Screen: Yuka You-Ri Yamanaka
Stage Management: Fleece