ilovemusicalyy:

wufflesvetinari:

i think the most unsettling stage play i ever saw was shun-kin by the complicite theater company.

based on a japanese novel (and performed in japanese by japanese actors) it tells the story of a domineering blind music teacher and her sadomasochistic/terribly codependent relationship with her servant. a lot of it read as a metaphor for the historic rapid pace of modernization in japan (and also, you know, a bdsm fantasy)

but what was most memorable was that shun-kin, the woman, is played by a complex, life-size bunraku puppet all through her childhood and early adulthood. two female stagehands in black manipulate the puppet in a really fluid way, and one of the puppeteer women is clearly voicing the character. there’s a sex scene between this puppet and the male lead in which shun-kin opens her kimono and reveals there’s nothing inside but air; her limbs and head are disembodied parts moved by the puppeteers. of course, no one in the scene acknowledges this. only the audience sees it

then about halfway through the play, shun-kin gets angry. the moment she starts ranting at her servant, the puppeteer voicing her seems to…forget herself. the puppeteer lunges forward as though she wants to tell the servant off herself. the other puppeteer frantically grasps the puppet to stop it from falling and tugs her partner back. the partner, startled, takes up her place manipulating the puppet again

when shun-kin grows up, she’s replaced by a real woman in a blank white mask who doesn’t move on her own: she’s still manipulated by the puppeteers as though she were a doll.

then, in another emotional scene, the puppeteer providing the voice throws the doll-woman to the ground, jumps into the scene, and (still wearing the all-black, nondescript clothes of a stagehand) becomes shun-kin. she finishes out the scene with no sign of any of the other characters noticing as the other puppeteer frantically tries to pull the lifeless doll-woman off the stage

by the time the next scene starts, the former puppeteer is wearing shun-kin’s kimono and acting on her own, all traces of dollishness or flat affect gone. the play continues as though nothing has happened

it was completely unexplained and creepy and really really cool

despazito:

despazito:

despazito: