Keiko's Blog

After a few minutes in the first act, two things came to my mind – Shared Experience and something weird about actors.

In the interval I checked the information in the foyer and the penny dropped. This particular adaptation was once done by Shared Experience and the company is entirely formed by recent graduates from one drama school. That’s why the technique and story telling style was very familiar to me, also the actors….they are all very young and their acting style were strangely unified, almost faceless. It even reminded me of some productions of acting course students I saw at my drama school. “I see, this may be called the standard result of three years in British acting institution.” They are still blank canvases because at the drama school, acting is not an art, but a grade to pass, discipline to follow, and the result is all similar wherever the school is. I am not criticising, but rather praising this well established British actor mass-producing infrastructure, especially when you compare the result with that in Japan. Japanese people believe that actors can’t be made by training, like  rock musicians, and we end up with very few self-taught good actors and lots of fake self-professed actors who are basically dolls in front of the camera.

I read some professional reviews online, and some of them were pointing out that their devised physical theatre style was clichéd. Yes, most of them were quite familiar techniques, and some of them were contrived and unnecessary. My favourite was the horse racing scene because it was one of the few scenes with ideas I have never seen on stage before. But most of the time there was too much going on, and there were hardly any moments of silence and stillness on stage (although I normally focus on the visual and skim the lines) therefore I couldn’t stop feeling that they attempted to over-compensate the inexperienced acting.

What the review I read triggered me to think was “what’s wrong with copying and reusing what’s invented already?” All the other theatrical forms – traditional theatre, dance, musical, even film – are full of clichés. The problem here is that some people still think physical theatre, a relatively newly born theatrical trend, is supposed to be innovative and rewriting theatre history. My thought to that is no. The evidence is my drama school course where I learned avant-garde theatre as a history and subject to learn, and we learned about Complicité. They didn’t explicitly attempt to mass-produce the innovators, unlike mass-produced actors at my acting course. What the course intended was to induce some creative minds, if I put it in a good way. But still training is training, and it might sound too cynical, but I think anyone who graduated from an institution of experimental theatre training wouldn’t be a pure innovator. There are several courses like that all over UK, and every year hundreds of young people are released into the theatre industry and thrive to make their way in experimental theatre world. How come we can still believe that experimental theatre is more art than business? We have to perceive that physical theatre nowadays became another strand of theatre business, and that’s why some young people go to university to learn about it to hopefully make their livings out of it in the future. So when we go to physical theatre productions, we have to expect to see chairs pretending to be a train, hand-held lamp, paper snow, candle lighting ritual, just like we see Jazz Hands in musicals.

Another thing, being a musician myself, I am very sensitive and judgemental about the use of live music in theatre productions. To be honest I didn’t like the musical choice in this production at all, and most of all I cringe when actors who happen to be able to play a little bit of instruments sheepishly play some half-baked tunes on stage. It’s slightly disrespectful to proper musical theatre and properly multi-skilled musical theatre actors. I can’t help expecting that sort of live music to be as high-standard as Kneehigh’s productions, and if they are not as good in music as that, then they may as well use recorded music. It’s such a shame that this single element ruined this production in a way for me.

I have to make it clear though that this production was closest to my cup of tea, and most enjoyable among everything I saw recently and the rest of the audience seemed to feel the same. Better than Robert Lepage, Peter Brook, Young Vic productions….can it be allowed? I wonder. No, maybe it’s the wrong way to judge. I have to say that this production touched the audience most. The combination of sheer young enthusiasm and energy of the production, Arcola’s charming cozy space and most of all Torstoy’s timeless masterful story touched us.

A stylish opera and a stylised opera both at A-list venues that have enough money to realise their artistic ambitions.

Return of Ulysses was sang in English, and I am not sure how much of the audience followed every single word in the lyrics. But more that that, the most impressive thing in this production is the set – a glass house like a fish bawl. The production used its unique and elegant set to the full extent of its potential. It employed some visually stunning imagery e.g. the relationship between characters inside and outside of the glass, claustrophobic image, and food, water and dirt making more and more mess on the at-first spotless glass surface. My favourite imagery was the transition when the room rotated with some characters in it alongside dramatic music (live Monteverdi music has a most chic effect). It created the effect of a slowly moving camera.

When it finished, some audience members in front of me were chatting as we were leaving the auditorium, ” They know how to put on shows.” I agree with that. Yes, they know how to impress the audience with their seemingly limitless resources.

The only thing I found unnecessary or ineffective was the simultaneous broadcasting at the top of the stage which was showing live images of action on the stage (just like Big Brother) to provide the audience another focus other than the main action. In theory it is a great idea to give the production multiple layers. It is tiresome for a contemporary audience to watch the same singer(s) throughout some long long areas with repeated lyrics. But this Big Brother-style peeking shot idea felt contrived sometimes.

A Magic Flute was Peter Brook’s other stripped down version of opera. This time this Mozart’s enigmatic but pure singspiel was adapted into Brook’s style.

I knew his company was a group of highly capable physical actors, and his directing style was minimalistic. So what I wanted to see was how he tackles this opera differently from other directors. What exactly he picked out from this fragmented story to form his version of opera was important, needless to say, as he would be one of the few directors in the world who is in the position to make works for his artistic vision and ambition, not for anyone else, I guess.

The simplicity on the stage brought one good outcome which was a very acute sense of music. Some of the most charming Mozart scores were presented to the large audience in the auditorium without any distractions. Then Mozart’s sensitive music emerged in a naked form. There couldn’t have been a better treat than this for me, but how about the rest of us? Some I assume would have heard this opera for the first time, then they must have been busy looking up at the subtitles all the time.

The production lacked any unnecessary so called “operatic” elements such as an orchestra, chorus and set, all of which makes opera a spectacle. As a result it ceased to have its festive experience as such, and the sense of celebration of combined arts which opera is all about. In other words, the production was too refined and elitist that it didn’t give us the atmosphere to enjoy Pappageno’s slapstick wholeheartedly, and some flamboyant musical tricks Mozart inserted for his audience including the Queen’s virtuoso areas. They can exist as entertainment because it’s an opera, and opera means the whole package of art form I mentioned above that enable to fill the massive space. Yes, the company’s highly skilled actors had abilities to fill the vast space by their presence, but not all the cast. So on the whole, the production didn’t radiate enough energy to Barbican’s massive auditorium. That’s the risk of intellectualising the opera story, because opera stories often exist to compliment the music and all the other elements. The production took the backbone out of this package.

However there is a successful example. Brook’s other opera adaptation “Carmen” worked wonderfully because it was a film. But this time, his attempt to focus on the human drama of opera would have worked on a much smaller stage, just like the Operaupclose style. Intimate style opera should be done in film or on an intimate stage.

By the way, I immensely enjoyed the piano on the stage, the pianist played every single note of the score with perfect attentiveness, which Mozart’s music requires. Even just to listen to his piano sounding on the big stage was worth the money of the ticket, I felt.

Three ambitious productions produced by Operaupclose.

The same old problem for Opera is how we can understand this ancient and foreign entertainment. If you do an opera in London, you either have to have a translation or subtitles.

I love opera and classical music. I was brought up in far East Asia where Western culture is so far away and so great that you can’t stop blindly aspiring to it, and the language barrier was not a problem at all. The first CD I bought with my own money was Beethoven’s piano concertos. Also I listened and sang along to The Beatles without understanding a single word of the lyrics. All I had in mind was how cool the Western sound was and how beautiful classical music was. Each Beatles’ album had a Japanese translation of the lyrics and it often sounded very silly, almost ruining the music.  Although the music was sophisticated, what they were singing about was most of the time merely about their girlfriends and other girlfriends and other… It’s still the same now, I listen to music without paying attention to lyrics, because it’s how I have been doing. So I enjoy Opera as classical music. And I enjoy theatre without too many lines.

Three of them had their own updated translations created specially for the productions in order to appeal to the local audience with local jokes. Yes, it was funny and that’s how it must have been originally in Italy.

Also the acting. The acting skill of the singers were the key to the success. My favourite opera produciton ever is “Abduction from Selario” by Hans Noienfels. He used an actor and a singer each for each character and put them in the same costume and let them play with it. Almost twins or alter-ego-like existence existed often at the same time on the stage and they were there to tell the story to the audience. It was an extremely witty and dark production which cut deep into the core emotion of Mozart’s early and rather emotionally immature characters. The actors played a most intense and superb dialogue, and singers too. It was a perfect example of how drama and music can equally serve the story at their best. You were witnessing a wrestle between drama and music.

All of the above three productions I watched in London changed the setting of  the original opera into contemporary/ unlikely/ controversy/ everyday setting and made it as accessible as possible. Some worked and some didn’t . When it didn’t work, I ended up closing my eyes so that I could concentrate on the music, as it was the only bits pleasurable for me. When it worked, it was great. But even if we keep on doing that “casualization” of opera, still there will be a limit, I fear. Because at the end of the day, why haven’t  these operas been forgotten already after centuries of music history? Because they are perfect as they are, and still the Royal Opera House fills up. Opera CDs sell well enough so that there are still opera courses in conservatories. In the end, I am a classical music fan, it means I enjoy opera as it is, and I feel a little arrogant to say “I want more people to appreciate opera so I will make some deconstructed operas”. No. Leave opera alone.

Having said that, one of my wildest ambitions as a creator is to direct Mozart’s operas in a completely different way to shake up the opera and theatre industry, in other words, becoming the “Matthew Bourne of opera”. So in my mind there are two opposite egos which are conservative music lover and experimental artist constantly conflicting.

My experimental mind wants to create something in between opera and abstract visual live performance using film. So the narrative of the opera should be supported by film with good naturalistic acting, then the structure of Mozart’s music should be left as it is, then visual abstract physical theatre should happen at the same time to combine all of them together. That’s my take on enjoying the music itself  as an atmosphere, without dwelling too much on the meaning and translation of each word.

Let’s see if I can realise that in the near future.

I experienced these two Secret Cinema one as an audience, and the other as a member of stuff.

It’s a highly original and compelling idea from a small ambitious film company. It’s a matter of time before it becomes not so secret in London and moves its way to a major event. Pop-up, boundary blurring art is in a trend at the moment. But this one is not in the trend, but making a new genre by itself. Because of this, I truly doubted the power of theatre that seems more limited and dated compared to film, for the first time. My faith in theatre has been shaken. Not that people don’t need theatre, theatre should always be there, like a library will be there, just theatre and library will never be equal or superior to film and internet in terms of their universal appeal, unless you count their romantic value.

From the audience’s point of view, it’s a highly commercial event. As a person with a performance background, I have never encountered such an opportunity for the actors to be genuinely valued and used. It all looks legitimate. Actors in this events are there because of a purely necessary – not self-satisfactry – reason.  I can hear the clicking sound of millions of working actors’ dreams and the public demand on actors matched for the first time. What a sheer joy to watch such a miracle.

From inside, it’s totally different, and I hope to work with them in a permanent position, so I will see. Like some fringe theatre people who despise anything commercial, I have never been impressed artistically by any commercial stuff as they always need to play safe. In that instant, Secret Cinema has a key to still call itself art, because it never try to dwells on the same safe trick. It is re-writing London art scene, and I am hugely proud to witness it.

What shall I start with? My mind coasted along several thoughts during this 90 mins show.

It is a show about, no, I should not say “about”. This is a show “by” a french rock band – 3 boys and a girl – I would say exploring how much they can make something interesting – some sort of theatre-ish performance – in a rock band format without falling into characters, script … something like that.

Funnily enough, I once saw a similar type of attempt done by another french company at Edinburgh Festival. It was called Score, and they didn’t use any words or characters,  just lots and lots of gadgets to create a humourously low-energy show. The stance is always “We are a geeky french group, and are very fascinated by these gadgets not you, so won’t pull a funny face for you. But it may look funny sometimes, then you can laugh…” I don’t know, is this kind of charm (that English people love to watch) used by certain European companies as a weapon?

I am not a rock musician, in fact I can’t even read a lead sheet, but I could clearly tell that they were quite able musicians. It is such a delight to see people on stage being musically competent. I might sound arrogant, but I have to say I don’t particularly like watching theatre people doing something musical although they are not musicians, as in without being aware that music means years of discipline first and foremost. Everyone can call themselves theatre makers when they want to, but only chosen trained people can be dancers and musicians. This throws me another thought. There was a course in my drama school called Actor Musicianship. Are they super-people who can do both things equally? Another frequently asked general question, “Are opera singers singers who can act or actors who can sing?”

There were several lift-off moments for me in the show. One is when they started to make a cheerful and hyper pop song using the actual instruction guide for one of the instruments as lyrics. Another one was the moment when the girl who was playing a drum standing in profile stepped over the drum slowly under a dim light while being taken over by a guy from behind, and it was at the same time as the music going into a momentum. I also need to note that the girl was gorgeous looking, with long long legs in a leather leggings and pin heels. It was a cinematic moment which depicted the character of the music. Such a shame I can’t describe what the music was, all I can say is it was a sort of quite dramatic and energetic rock.

Sure there were some wishy washy moments and some self-indulgent moments. I needed to ask “ok it’s clever, but why? It looks silly” Or maybe you don’t need to care about that then, because there is no narrative, no character involved here.