words rachel mok

A puppet show questions sanity in a pressure-cooker society

Call him freaky if you wish, poet/dramatist/writer and director Shuji Terayama has been described as Japan’s own Samuel Beckett by some and an alchemist of words by others. Audiences will be able to make up their own minds when Educating Mad Persons, Terayama’s one and only puppet play, written in 1962, stages in Hong Kong this month. And what would Terayama himself say if he were here to see the production by underground theatre group Ryuzanji Company? “Brilliant! But too straightforward.” imagines Hong Kong-based Japanese actress E-Run, translator of the play and a performer in the production.

Directed by veteran Japanese actor/director/producer Show Ryuzanji, the show first premièred in Korea in 1999 and has been touring worldwide, winning the Best of Fringe award at Victoria’s Fringe International Theatre Festival. The ‘operetta’ tells of a family informed by a doctor that one of their members may be mad – but not which one. The family turns paranoid, each copying the others’ actions and hiding their defects and emotional turmoil. It may be bizarre but that is what universally happens when people lose their identity to a high-pressured society says E-Run.
“When the Japanese economy developed rapidly 40 years ago, a lot of people sacrificed – or wasted – their lives by working very hard for the society or a more comfortable life.” The artist considers ‘finding oneself’ one of the most important issues in Japanese small theatre, and what Terayama tried to express four decades ago still applies to the contemporary world. “A lot of youngsters have lost themselves now,” she says. “They are afraid to be different. They wear similar clothes and have the same make up. You can call it a trend, or just call it a loss of character.”

Ryuzanji’s direction appealed to E-Run from the first time she saw the show in Beijing in 2002. “It is poetic yet satiric. It fits in the contemporary world but Ryuzanji takes a very Asian approach in his direction,” says the Beijing-trained actress. “I instantly wanted to work with him and tried to infuse [the play with] Chinese culture.” Although Educating Mad Persons was originally a puppet play, Ryuzanji uses six puppets, six ‘kurokos’ (masked puppeteers) and 15 original songs for his production. Nevertheless, the director emphasizes that they are working on a drama, not a musical.

“All the songs are very good. But if we really sing these songs as if they are songs, they will not move people anymore. When we sing them, we have to sing like we are acting with emotion,” explains E-Run. In fact, during rehearsal the director often told the cast to speak the songs rather than sing them. “This is a modern play with a touch of musical,” the actress says.

Does she agree with the description of Terayama as the Japanese Beckett? After all, a See magazine article in 2000 noted Educating Mad Persons “would have made Beckett’s brow furrow”. Though E-Run says she isn’t too familiar with the Irish writer, she does see some similarity between the two. “Beckett is a challenge to theatre. Terayama is a challenge to society. He challenged society sometimes through drama, sometimes through film or poems.”

Educating Mad Persons will be staged - in Mandarin and Japanese with Chinese and English surtitles - from September 19-21 at Onandon Cattle Depot Theatre. Shows start at 8pm and there will be matinees on September 20 and 21 at 2:45pm. Tickets are $140 from Mackie Study (Causeway Bay and Wanchai), Kubrick (Yau Ma Tei and Kwun Tong) and Hong Kong Reader. Walk-in tickets are priced at $150. More details at www.onandon.org.hk