Tin pots to 100 synths: sounds from Japan
Neither fully scientific nor entirely random, the music played by three adventurous Japanese acts coming to the Push International Performing Arts Festival can best be described as alchemical— sounds generated by experimental processes, and by musicians capable of combining serious intent with a willingness to seek the miraculous and the unknown.
The most obviously alchemical performance, in that it combines elements of both science and ritual, will likely come from Tetsuya Umeda, who eschews conventional instruments entirely. In Ringo— which means “apple” in Japanese, but will have other connotations for percussionists and lovers of popular music—he crafts mysterious sensory environments from the simplest of means: tin cans, dry ice, bowls, and those little propane burners popular in hot-pot restaurants. Bright lights, dark shadows, fire, and dancerly movement all add to his atmospheric performances; he’s concerned not so much with the alchemical transformation of his materials, but with inducing subtle psychological shifts in his audience.
“In our daily life, we sometimes come across unexpected situations, and at other times, we experience things that should exist forever suddenly disappearing,” he says from Osaka. “These things happen to us, but we might not realize these changes because we are buried under hyperexcessive information overload. In the performance, it is my duty to subtly control and change the things already extant in the space, to change the balance so that it is just noticed or sensed. It is ideal to have an ambiguous and uncontrollable balance, so as to go back and forth between the border of the ordinary and the extraordinary.”
Naoyuki Arashi, who performs as ASUNA, likewise walks a line between science and magic. In 100 Keyboards, he uses cheap and mostly outmoded synthesizers to set up beating tones; starting with a single note, he’ll build an enormous, physically enveloping cloud of sound. And while he knows fairly clearly how his hundred synths will interact with each other, each performance is different because of the more random factor of how the music will engage with each venue’s acoustics.
“When I first
100 Keyboards,
space, I check which note has the most resonance and interference,” Arashi explains, noting that Keyboards draws on his interest in minimalistic music, his work with digital sound, and his experiences playing lo-fi experimental punk music. “During the performance, I choose each note on the keyboard on the spot while listening to its sound so that those phenomena are likely to occur.”
Setting is also important to the four members of Marginal Consort, who upend concert orthodoxy by trying not to listen to each other during their performances, and by deliberately siting themselves as far away from each other as possible. The idea, as explained by founding member Kazuo Imai with the aid of translator Keiko Higuchi, is a kind of “parallel” play; each member of the group is an independent entity, with their own amplification and instrumentation. (The tools used range from familiar horns and strings to amplified springs to home-built electronics.) Audience members are free to “mix” the sound for themselves by moving between performers, creating their own balance of sound—and sight, given that the musicians also delve into anguished, perhaps butohinspired theatrics.
Otherworldly? Yes. But also beautifully open-ended, democratic, and, ultimately, human. g
d THE FULL LIGHT OF DAY is enormously ambitious. On a technical level, it dazzles. But despite the production’s abundant strengths, its story doesn’t quite reach the heart.
Playwright Daniel Brooks focuses his script on a wealthy family, the Whites. Patriarch Harold is a realestate mogul (today’s equivalent of the tragic hero of ancient Greece, apparently) who has spent his life putting up a lot of “ugly buildings”, according to his wife, Mary. His eldest son, David, has taken over the business and moved its already shady dealings into even deeper shade. Daughter Jane has thrown herself into her own work as a realtor to avoid grieving the loss of her husband to suicide. Youngest son Joey appears to have a bigger conscience than his siblings, but he can’t figure out quite how to use it.
The first act, which clocks in at over an hour and a half, introduces us to the family members as they prepare to celebrate Mary’s birthday. There are hints that something is amiss, both with Mary’s health and with Harold’s business, and the plot circles back on itself in surprising and revealing ways, but it’s never entirely clear what’s at stake—or whether there’s anyone on-stage we’re supposed to like enough to care about. (The most sympathetic character is dispatched disappointingly early.)
The story improves considerably in the second act as Mary, on her deathbed, confronts the shadowy side of her privilege and negotiates new relationships with her family members. But the blend of realism and myth in the action doesn’t always land comfortably.
To dwell on the story, though, is to overlook this production’s most significant achievement: its staging as a hybrid of film and theatre. Director Kim Collier and director of photography and projection design Brian Johnson have created an extraordinarily immersive world for this play, blending live action and film in breathtaking ways. Atmospheres are projected onto a scrim in front of the set; huge, live close-ups of actors’ faces appear on the walls themselves; actors sit in an actual car on-stage while the streetscapes roll past on-screen, larger than life. It’s extraordinary, and the creators’ inventiveness is seemingly inexhaustible. Within this world, all of the actors are tremendous. Watching the emotions play on the projected face, big as a house, of Gabrielle Rose’s Mary, is a study in nuance, as is seeing Jim Mezon gradually scrape away the lacquer on Harold’s tough exterior. Jonathon Young’s Joey is utterly charismatic in his confusion; Young also shines as a preacher in a later scene. Jillian Fargey brings both steel and warmth to the role of David’s wife, Sherry, one of the few characters in the play who’s capable of reaching out with kindness. Jenny Young and Dean Paul Gibson both do excellent work as Jane and David, though Jane in particular feels underwritten.
Julie Fox’s set is a stunner, with tall structures that can be moved around to accommodate the script’s cinematic quality—lots of short scenes and frequent changes of location— and its cinematic content; its surfaces are both handsome on their own and well-suited for projection. Peter Allen’s original music leans heavily toward the sentimental, though.
For me, the characters and events of The Full Light of Day don’t resonate as real enough to induce the big emotions that I think the creators want me to feel. Nonetheless, the stellar acting and formal ingenuity of this play deserve sustained applause. g
d CAPERNAUM TAKES you deep into the slums of Beirut, where children suck back cigarettes, jump filthy puddles in their flip-flops, and face predators at every turn.
Nadine Labaki’s heart-ripping new film gives audiences a groundlevel view of an ugly world they wouldn’t otherwise see. At its centre is tough, unaffected Zain (Zain Al Rafeea), a boy who may be 12, but he’s not sure: his parents can’t remember when he was born.
When the film opens, he’s in jail “because I stabbed a son of a bitch”. He’s soon led to court in handcuffs to sue his parents for giving birth to someone they had no means to care for.
In flashback, we learn he’s been raised in squalor, sharing a mattress with his four siblings. He and his 11-year-old sister Sahar find ways to survive in the streets despite abuse and alcoholism at home. But his world is torn apart when his parents consider selling Sahar to make ends meet.
Running away from that nightmare, Zain finds himself in a tawdry seaside amusement park, hooking up with an illegal immigrant, Ethiopian Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw). He looks after her baby in a corrugated-metal squat while she scrubs floors and manages public toilets for money. When Rahil goes missing, they take to the streets to search for her, Zain pulling the infant in a big tin pot he’s mounted on a stolen skateboard.
Al Rafeea and Shiferaw ground Labaki’s empathetic story in beautifully natural performances. The scruffy-haired boy looks tired beyond his years, fiercely determined despite the weight he carries on his tiny shoulders. Rahil rarely speaks about whatever unimaginable torment she’s been through to get here, but transmits it in every painful gaze.
It’s not all unrelenting misery. Zain’s interactions with the baby can be funny, and his gentle care for her, as well as his affection for his sister, offer hope for the universe. With the kindness of Rahil, the misfits form a kind of family—and for a short while, it almost works.
Through it all, Zain is a beacon of resilience amid chaos. But at its heart, Capernaum is a plea for child welfare in the corners of the world where it doesn’t exist.