the clog

The greatest play that you didn't see!

Yesterday, wednesday night was, hands down, the most entertaining night of this week. Last night I watched a bunraku style play titled "A story a bird gave me to hear". It was awesome. That's right, and you missed it. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?

Anyway, for those of you who are not in the know, bunraku is a japanese style puppet theater from Japan (duh). This particular production was true to it's japanese roots because it was also in japanese. Now, ordinarily this would cause me a lot of distress because my japanese is limited to "toire wa doko?" and loudly sounding off any japanese company that comes to mind and praying that nobody notices. Suzuki! Sony! Karikepalakatak! Yeah, just like that. Fortunately, the play had subtitles.

The story itself starts off simply enough: A japanese school teacher comes to an island where she believed her grandfather passed away during WWII. But a chance meeting with a bird dealer leads to her questioning that belief and a great adventure. However, halfway through the play I cannot help but think "Wow, this is a lot like Mononoke Hime...". I'll leave it at that just in case you have an opportunity to catch this amazing play (slim chance though it may be).

The puppets themselves were a wonder to behold. As I was watching I couldn't help but draw comparisons to that scene from "The Sound of Music" where Fraulein Maria puts on a puppet show with the kids. Only, these puppets probably looked cooler. Anyway, I could try explaining 'til I'm blue in the face but you'd still not get an inkling of how amazing these puppets were. So I'll just say these two words: Puppet Helicopter. Okay, maybe you had to be there.

In short, this play has revived my once dead interest in the Malaysian theater scene. Heck, I wanted to stand up and clap many times during the course of the play. Unfortunately, I was too self conscious to do it. Too bad you missed it.

Rumoku out!