Stories that hook and hold
Delightful show draws on an ancient Japanese tradition, writes Robyn Sassen
OU could be forgiven for feeling incredulous that Jemma Kahn, 30, is but one person. She has earned accolades as a set and costume designer. She has directed, she has written, she has drawn and she is the woman behind The Epicene Butcher and Other Stories for Consenting Adults, a contemporary corruption of ancient Japanese traditional kamishibai theatre, which has taken Cape Town, Durban and Amsterdam audiences by storm lately.
“The show has become its own entity,” she says nervously, phrasing “the Butcher” in a terrifying, ghoulish voice and commenting on how, after this past Cape Town season at the Alexander Bar, she has performed it some 70 times.
In the early 2000s, Kahn switched halfway through a fine arts degree at the University of the Witwatersrand to study drama.
In 2006, she and Bryan van Niekerk constructed a play without human language
Ycalled The Animals. It was premised on animal rights, but “because it didn’t have a script, it was not marketable”.
This resulted in “immense disappointment in the industry ” on her part and set her on the path of many arts graduates: she went to the Far East to teach English and find herself. It was not a particularly lovely experience for her. “I was terrified of everything. I hated it. I hated the cicadas’ buzz, the oppressive manners of society, everything. ”
But then a teacher at Kahn’s school, Takao Shintani — nicknamed Gunch — stepped in. He began to mentor her, and introduced her to kamishibai master Rokuda Genji.
Kamishibai has its roots in 12th-century Japanese Buddhism, and uses a portable theatre for the presentations.
With Gunch’s help in understanding nuances of Japanese culture and helping her tolerate Genji’s extreme eccentricities, Kahn began to learn about this form of storytelling. And the rest is The Epicene Butcher history.
Kahn ’ s construction for the show adheres to the traditional principles of kamishibai.
“I learned the technique from the inside out,” she says (having played Genji’s assistant), “and all my stories have a Japanese umbilical cord.”
Director John Trengove’s mooting of this assistant, “Chalk Girl”, an elusive character with no script, enabled Wits drama student Klara van Wyk to make the role her own.
“In what started as a secret role in which the character doesn’t say a word and doesn’t appear on the credits, Klara, who comes of theatre experiences that have veered from French puppeteering to work with Toni Morkel on Nanouche and stage-managing Planet B, is a little girl who has such cojones. She’s really nailing the role,” Kahn said.
The Epicene Butcher is storytelling at its absolute best. It uses technology-less constructions, astounding drawings by Kahn, sports journalist Carlos Amato, and a Dutch artist, and balances a wooden clotheshorse with high Japanese kitsch.
Scriptwriter Gwydion Beynon wrote all of the stories and also illustrated one of them.
After winning a Standard Bank Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown last year, The Epicene Butcher was performed briefly in two venues in Johannesburg.
I found it extraordinary, quite unlike anything I have ever seen before. It left me with a smile on my face.
Originally comprising seven stories with The Epicene Butcher as the central pièce de resistance, the work has grown and shifted; added to the tales is a spider’s thread of some pornography, a cat’s dreams and Mandela. There is a new story about Darwin and another involving a Shakespearean character called Super Mario in the mix.
This 50-minute experience is something you might not know again. Kahn is clear. She has other plans on her agenda involving Amsterdam-based funding and brand-new work.
“The Epicene was a Venn diagram combining the talents of John, Gwydion, Carlos and me growing and shifting since 2010. My biggest lament about it is that I can never watch it.
“But after Edinburgh, which is after Grahamstown, which is after this Market season, it’ll be time to move on.”