Mavericks, Mavens & Machines

Beyond Boundaries: Genre-bending Mavericks
Takayuki Fujimoto, Takao Kawaguchi, Tsuyoshi Shirai
"True"
Japan Society, New York
November 13, 2008

By Tom Phillips
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips

It was many months ago that Japan Society decided to title its fall performance series “Genre-bending Mavericks,” long before the term “maverick” was picked up and pounded to a pulp in this election year. In any case, the guys who put on the latest installment of this series seem more mavens than mavericks: masters of a new form of technological theater that blends sound, lighting and dance into a seamless whole. “True” is an illusion with the force and incomprehensibility of reality.

The characters are two men in a room – one loose-limbed, sweatshirt-clad young hippie type and an older, faintly thuggish fellow who enters in a red raincoat, and later sheds it to reveal a gray suit with a black shirt. On each side of the room is a scaffold with fluorescent lights built in; on the ceiling, a circle of multi-colored bright lights. The centerpiece is a table, holding articles of civilization: a globe, a cup, a model plane, a newspaper, a calendar, a lighter, a couple of donuts. The young man tries to read the paper, fill the cup, look through the donuts etc. but for every move he makes there is a simultaneous cacophony from the speakers, a spectacular flashing or flickering in the lights. One immediately senses the mystery of cause and effect: is he activating the environment or vice versa? Or is it an inseparable continuum? (Adding to the mystery is a helpful program note which hints that the date on the calendar is one that doesn’t exist in Japanese history because of a time change, and the plane is a model of a Pan Am supersonic transport that was never built.)

The action takes the form of a school day, with nine periods beginning with “science,” and ending with “survival.” The turning point comes as the boy stands on the table and it suddenly transforms itself into swiss cheese – cylinders of wood fall from its surface and crash to the floor, leaving holes big enough to climb through. In the last scene, the articles of civilization are all on the floor, the two men rolling and tumbling in tandem amongst them. Survivors.

Whatever the philosophical merits of the piece, its real strength is in the melding of high technology with performance. The cause-and-effect conundrum is clear because the performers and directors have worked together to craft an environment that is not just lights and sounds accompanying dancers, but an aesthetic continuum. (In doing this, it should be noted that they had financial support from such heavyweights as Toyota, the Asahi Beer Foundation, and the city of Tokyo.)

Full disclosure: High-tech shows like this are not exactly my cup of tea. I must say I’m not looking forward to the dawning age when technology is an equal partner with human performers. Having said all that, I should add that “True” is ably danced, especially by the lithe and malleable Tsuyoshi Shirai as the hippie guy. He’s the 21st century incarnation of the man in the machine, reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times,” but in a machine that is all the more menacing because you can’t see how it works.

“True” continues through Saturday November 16th at Japan Society.

Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips
Photo by Ryuichi Maruo