Miyagi’s monumental creation, praised in over 9 countries and 28 cities will be shown for the first time in 7 years.
An Asian theater’s quest realized, a stage overflowing with spectacles.
Director Miyagi Satoshi’s Tenshu-Monogatari, after its first showing in 1996, has been performed in 28 different cities in the countries of Japan, India, Pakistan, China, Egypt, South Korea, America, France and Taiwan. This masterpiece of Miyagi’s, receiving serious acclaim in each city, will be shown for the first time since 2004. It is a long awaited re-performance, not only for Shizuoka, but for theater fans all of the country.
The dubious Tomihime, and the young falconer Zushonosuke, are in the Shirasagi Castle Tenshu Kaku, a castle trifled with “human irrationality”. Tenshu-Monogatari, written during World War I, the result of a search for beauty in an eccentric world at a different level, as apposed to “strength”, shines as Kyoka Izumi’s masterpiece of a drama. Kyoka may have felt doubt towards a time headed towards war. Please enjoy Kyoka’s fantastic world, one set in our outside theater, complete with openness and the smell of wind through trees.
Miyagi has been working to bring Asia’s diverse theater tradition to the forefront of modern production. In Tenshu-Monogatari, one can see this tendency all throughout the performance. This is also a show that has ripened the method of “two in one role”, where one character is split into a narrative and a movement. In using this method, a mechanism is made where one can recapture the relationship between word and body, rendering a theatrical human model opposed to itself in the awkwardness.
Summary
It’s Sengoku period. The fifth floor of Himeji Castle, also called Shirasagi Castle, is home to spirits of the evil world where “no human returns alive.” Tomihime, Tenshu Kaku’s administrator of the creatures that live here, asks protégée Kamehime on her way home to Inawashiro, to bring the castle owner Takeda Harimanokami his most beloved pet Falcon. Harimanokami’s young falconer, Himekawa Zushonosuke, ordered to search for the lost bird, climbs up to the fifth floor, fully aware he may not return. Tomihime, intrigued by the pureness of young Zushonosuke, undisturbed by the creatures, decides to let him live and returns him below. However, after returning to his master, he is misunderstood yet again and forced to appear before Tomihime once more…
