Following Romeo and Juliet, Hideki Noda returns to London with new play, Love in Action, that he has written and directed with his theatre company Noda Map. Although the production is inspired by Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, as Noda puts it, Love in Action does take the audience to a place far removed from the original.
This story takes place towards the end of World War II in Japan. The story centres around three brothers of the Karamatsu family - a family of traditional firework makers: the eldest brother Tomitaro, the second brother Iwan, and the youngest brother Ariyoshi. The story begins with Tomitaro being accused in court of murdering his father, Hyodo. Over the next few hours, as people speak in their defence and testimonies, the audience is taken back to those moments. In the process of reconstructing the full picture of the case, the story of this Karamatsu family is also learned. During the trial, they are constantly interrupted by air raid sirens. And after hiding in a bomb shelter until the sirens are lifted, the trial begins again. But when the trial comes to an end, the story doesn't stop there.
The design of the stage (Yukio Horio) is quite reminiscent of the era. There is a bridge erected over the wide stage with two tunnels underneath for people to pass through, which also resemble two air-raid shelters. The use of props, music (Junko Fujimoto) and lighting (Motoi Hattori and Makoto Kitazawa) makes the change of time and place very flexible and interesting, and therefore makes the production even more immersive. Most of the time, the lighting is a slightly dim yellow light that makes the courtroom environment seem real, and as the location changes with the testimonies, the lighting changes to correspond to the environment. In the very first appearance of Grushenka, the lover of father Hyodo and eldest son Tomitaro, the bridge is hidden in the darkness, as a huge piece of orange-red tulle raised in the air, the floor is lighted in the same colour, and a passionate and fascinating atmosphere is created. Tulles, steel pipes, red oil paper umbrellas, colourful balls and tape are used extensively. Together with the lights and music, the stage is transformed into a brothel, the inner world of Iwan, a boxing ring, the list goes on. The music in the play is all songs from the Showa era, which corresponds to the background of the story, and at the same time, brings the audiences into the atmosphere of the scenes depicted in the play.
While the subject matter discussed in Love in Action is heavy, there is a great deal of comedy in the play. A large part of the comic moments is based around the switching of roles that the actors play on stage. In this play, several actors are responsible for playing two roles. For example, Masami Nagasawa has to play both Ariyoshi and Grushenka; Naoto Takenaka has to play Hyodo and the prosecutor; and Noda, the writer-director, plays the monastery elder as well as the defence attorney. A lot of the time, when the flashbacks end, Takenaka doesn't have the time to change from his role as the father back to the prosecutor. Therefore, he has to change his clothes and put on a wig in front of the audience. There is also a moment when Ariyoshi speaks the words that should have come out of Grushenka's mouth. On top of that, there is a lot of comic relief that jumps out of the content of the play. For example, Ariyoshi says Twitter-related lines despite being in the setting of World War II; while having dinner with the monastery elder, people are suddenly freeze-framed in the likeness of the painting The Last Supper. While it does add a lot of lightheartedness to the show, it sometimes feels out of character and out of place in the context of the play.
The entire cast holds a very unified and consistent approach to their performances. However, because the characters portrayed in the script aren't very complicated, it's also difficult for the actors to play with the space to show the different facets of the characters. Comparatively speaking, Tomitaro, played by Matsumoto, is the most fleshed out of all the characters. His interpretation of Tomitaro is a man with secular desires, though at odds with his father and would fight against him, but also helps the daughter of the Navy's lieutenant colonel without compensation, and is reluctant to light a fire to launch a toad or use his skills in making fireworks for making an atomic bomb. Whereas several other characters are portrayed in a somewhat one-dimensional manner. Iwan, played by Eita Nagayama, is shown to be simply a physicist who is passionate about his research to the point of being a bit obsessive. Whereas Nagasawa's Ariyoshi is innocent and kind, Grushenka, also played by her, seems wild and charming without showing any other sides.
Although adapted from The Brothers Karamazov, Love in Action has a different focus. To fully emphasise these key messages, the complexity of human nature and the deep-rooted influence of the family of origin exhibited in the original is hard to see in this production, unfortunately. Because of the lack of space, the illegitimate son of the father in the original, Smerdyakov, is also almost buried in Love in Action. With a novel this heavy and complex as the foundation, it's hardly possible for Love in Action to be unappealing. But comparing it to the original, Love in Action does pale slightly, but it's still something worth seeing. Rather than the serious discussions in the courtroom, perhaps the most compelling moment is the peaceful time when people set off fireworks, and the little mailman rides his bicycle to deliver the mail with kites floating in the sky.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4*)
Gifted tickets in return for an honest review | photography by Alex Brenner
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