Kafka’s Monkey and The Bee opening in Tokyo
This week, Tokyo sees the opening of two plays written by playwright and Birkbeck lecturer Colin Teevan.
This week, Tokyo sees the opening of two plays written by playwright and Birkbeck lecturer Colin Teevan.
The Bee, which Teevan wrote with Hideki Noda has just opened in Japanese at the Suitengu Pit Theatre, Tokyo before a seven city Japanese tour. Using Tsutsui Yasutaka's novel, Mushiriai, as a subject matter, the story revolves around a typical businessman who takes a wife and child hostage. Described in Time Out as ‘part slapstick comedy, part satire, part macabre dance’, Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times said that ‘Colin Teevan's adaptation, together with Hideki Noda's inventive production, draws links between comedy and pain, beauty and cruelty, particularly as associated with Japanese culture.’
Kafka’s Monkey, an adaptation of Kafka’s Report to the Academy, opens this week in Tokyo too at the Setagaya Theatre at the start of its third world tour taking in Taipei, Turkey, France and finishing at the Warwick Arts Centre at the end of May. The Young Vic describes the play as ‘A witty, heart-rending and ironic tale of forced assimilation into an alien culture, Kafka’s Monkey places a startling mirror in front of a modern day audience.’