Slow noh by Yugen just right for ‘Carol’
Maybe you thought you knew “A Christmas Carol.” Maybe you thought that after adaptations with the Muppets, the Flintstones, Mr. Magoo, Bugs Bunny, Scrooge McDuck and Bill Murray, Charles Dickens’ novella of yuletide redemption could hold no more surprises for you.
On what might seem an unrelated note, maybe you’ve believed traditional Japanese theater forms like noh and kyogen to be inaccessible. Maybe you’ve struggled with their characteristics: deliberative, ritualized entrances from a spirit world; highly stylized line delivery that stretches syllables out, often ratcheting pitch and timbre into a squeak or bray; gestures as codified as those of a dance or religious service; and an overall pace that seems to slow time down.
But combine the two, as with Theatre of Yugen’s “A Noh Christmas Carol,” and what might feel strange to many Western audiences becomes a little more familiar, while what’s too familiar becomes mysterious, suspenseful and alive with possibility.
Yuriko Doi’s adaptation, seen Sunday, Dec. 9, at NOHspace, streamlines the Dickens original into a stark 85
minutes. Scrooge is Sukurooji (Simone Bloch); Jacob Marley is Jakubei (Steven Flores). You’ll hear recognizable lines, like the remark that a Christmas Day off for Scrooge’s clerk, Kurando (Zoe Chien), is “a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket,” as well as some Japanese phrases and allusions; one character looks forward to “dancing in the rice festival.”
Often, bald declarations of character economize the storytelling — “People tremble when I want something,” Sukurooji says. “I trust no one” — so that visuals carry the bulk of the narrative in Nick Ishimaru’s production. Makeup astonishes. Dark green brushstrokes on top of a white base transform Bloch’s face into a mask that keeps fluttering to life. Thick black in the eyes and lips of Flores’ Jakubei make his features into bottomless pits. When he opens his jaw to make a silent wail, coupled with the tortured writhing of his limbs and spine, it’s as if all the furies of hell fly out.
If Jakubei’s ghost actually frightens, unlike so many other renderings of Marley, Rachael Richman’s Ghost of Christmas Present is as beguiling as a sprite. Gracefully tapering black eyeliner and splotches of red above the eyelids look as if she’s sporting a rubythroated hummingbird in each eye.
No cast member evinces the years of training that, in some previous Theatre of Yugen productions, have made powerful cases for the ongoing worth of traditional Japanese theater. You don’t see years of mastery, control, grace and thoughtfulness in each shuffling, swishing step or sharp chant.
But these performers still acquit themselves well under Ishimaru’s direction, which keeps each scene twinkling and tingling. A giant, circular portal between this life and the next dominates Josh McDermott’s simple yet whimsical set design, and each time characters breathlessly approach or trespass it, the reverberations are enough to make you believe in ghosts again. Ella Cooley’s sound design, although not always sufficiently differentiated from scene to scene, gives the show a sui generis mood, like you’re inside a music box yet also watching a UFO take off — charmed and otherworldly, delicate yet expansive.
One of the best parts of “A Noh Christmas Carol,” as with so many Theatre of Yugen productions, is the simple, early moment when you acclimate yourself to the slower pace. As Bloch’s Sukurooji enters, making his way down a walkway that signals a journey from the next life to this one, each step is an event. You might feel your own breathing and pulse slow, your attention sink in and get comfortable, yet sharpen in that comfort. “A Noh Christmas Carol” gives you permission to take your time, to meditate, to absorb — exactly what the holiday season is supposed to give us yet so rarely does.