BWW Reviews: HALCYON DAYS, Riverside Studios, August 23 2011

My fixing points on Japanese culture are at opposite ends of the spectrum - no matter what that spectrum measures. On the one hand, my kids and I have spent many happy hours watching the madcap, malevolent Takeshi's Castle - think It's a Knockout with half the contestants ending up in casualty; and on the other, we love the gentle beauty of the films of Hayao Miyazaki, Oscar winner for Spirited Away. Sitting somewhere between those two extremes is Halcyon Days (at the Riverside Studios until 18 September).

Directed by its author, Shoji Kokami and faultlessly translated by Aya Ogawa, the play follows the lives of four people (except it's not four people), who meet with the intention to commit suicide (except they don't all intend to commit suicide), who spend a lot of time rehearsing for a performance of a Japanese fairytale (except they don't get to perform). You get the picture? Or, rather, you don't get the picture? Matters not at all, as the play races along propelled by four singular characters: Masa, overwrought businessman; Hello Kitty, flamboyant businessman; Kazumi, haunted counsellor; and Akio, vengeful spirit. All four actors are onstage almost every minute of the two hours and give fine performances full of wit and warmth. Mark Rawlings is spectacularly over the top as the charming attention-seeking Hello Kitty; Dan Ford is convincingly understated or overstated as delusions grip and release Masa; Joe Morrow is funny and frightening as Kazumi's ghostly vision; and Abigail Boyd portrays a woman just about holding it together, as Kazumi tries to redeem her past negligence. Oh - and there's ogres and fancy dress and rustic villagers and the worst bird impersonations since The Birdie Song was big.

Those sensitive to matters of political correctness may find the presentation of four people who clearly suffer from mental illness in an unabashed comedy to have a few too many echoes of Victorians gawping at the inmates of Bedlam, but the sheer joie de vivre of these four people ostensibly obsessed with death, is enough to win over anyone with a sense of humour. Were this play seen in Japan with Japanese actors and clumsily subtitled, I can quite imagine it failing: in the hands of a cast confident in their work and a translator who has captured the vernacular language the play needs, Halcyon Days sails close to the wind, but stays on course to provide an evening of laughs leavened by pathos and leaves the audience with no little food for thought.   

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