Urishima Taro

This was a strange play but very cleverly done. The story was about a boy who met a girl, unfortunately she lived under the sea. The boy Urishima Taro, lived with his mother, one day he went to sea in his boat and there was a storm where he met the turtle he had saved days previous, the turtle led him down to the depths of the sea towards safety. It turns out that the turtle was a princess; the princess and Urishima Taro spent the day together and fell in love. She gives him a choice of staying with her or going back, he chooses to stay with the princess. However when he does return to the surface the princess gives him a box, everything has been destroyed, and he opens the box, it is his age.

The whole performance was done by one person and she controlled puppets, these were life like puppets as she had made them from a mould from her face and then adapted them. She made them have different characteristics and ‘walks’, one had a hunched back another was taller than she was. The movements were so life like you felt that you were watching more than one person on stage.

Also on stage, stage left, there was a little screen, where on certain parts, showing Urishima Taro going to sea she made a puppet show with miniature versions of the other life like puppets. Also she had a projection screen at the back where when there was the scene where the princess and Urishima Taro made love, we saw the outlines of the bodies, this was very effective, we saw what was happening without feeling uncomfortable.

There was an after show talk where the actor and her partner, who created the idea of it, told us that the idea was discovering the relationship between puppet and human, she also showed us how the puppets worked. My verdict is that this was a very interesting piece of theatre that is a must see.