This week at the Film Forum, there is a festival of the sort of stories that Japan is best known for, at least in the US: grand epics of the passionate and honorable samurai. Not far away, however, the Fringe Festival and the Theatre Arts Japan Company are presenting stories far smaller in scale and fervor, but no less quintessentially Japanese.
"Tokyo Nostalgia" is a trio of short plays about ordinary Japanese people, each of them touched by a journey on a train. The tales were written by early 20th century influential playwright Kunio Kishida. The fledgling performance space The Dixon Place theatre, with an eclectic array of couches, stools, and rocking chairs serving for audience seating, is a fittingly intimate setting for the three actor work. The mood is set before and during the play with songs of Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald, evoking a more western idea of nostalgia.
Recognizable themes are found in all three vignettes. "Two men playing with their lives" is an unusual take on the rising sun theme of honorable suicide. The men in question (Motoko Kobayashi and Yosuke Takahashi) both intend to throw themselves in front of a train, and over the course of the play talk one another, and themselves, in and out of their fatal decision. The scene features amusing dark humor, but is somewhat repetitive. "Paper balloon" is a sweet tale of poor newlyweds on an imaginary vacation. Yuriko Hoshina, as the wife, and Takahashi are infectiously excited and a real joy to watch. All three performers take part in the final, silent play, simply entitled "Railroad", and evokes both hope and the painfully familiar concept of loneliness in a crowd. Director Erico Ogawa has helped to craft remarkable moments in each playlet.
The main problem with "Tokyo Nostalgia" is a technical one. There is something, for lack of a less loaded phrase, lost in translation. Not thematically, but literally; the English adaptation of the script takes dialogue that was clearly poetic in the source language, and makes it tremendously awkward. This issue is compounded by the fact that the actors, though talented and experienced, are not native English speakers. This leads to line readings which, already strangely phrased on the page, are hard to follow because of pronunciation and inflection problems. As an exercise in cultural attitudes and intimate exchanges, the production has promise. Future productions by Theatre Arts Japan will bear watching.
