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Venue: Charing Cross Theatre, London
Writer & Director – Takuya Kato
English Translation – Andrew and Mika Eglinton
Producer – Umeda Arts Theater
Cast: Susan Momoko Hingley and Mark Takeshi Ota
Running time: 70 minutes
Japan’s Umeda Arts Theater, based in Osaka, began collaborating with London’s Charing Cross Theatre in 2019.
It’s now back after a break for the pandemic and then a joint venture with London’s Menier Chocolate Factory last year.
Drawing on Neil Armstrong’s lunar quote, the programme note tells us cross-cultural theatre collaboration is still at the “small step” stage. Not only the title of the play, it is pertinent to the size of the leap required to eliminate the gap between British and Japanese audiences.
Eliminating it altogether is not necessarily desirable as shaking the audience out of its cultural complacency and making it question how it should react only adds to the dramatic tension.
Takuya Kato, director as well as writer, has delivered a script that delves into a particularly Japanese form of obedience to a big corporation, whose mission happens to be to colonise the moon, and what that means for personal relationships.
The major plot complication takes the form of the news Narumi (Susan Momoko Hingley) is pregnant, prompting her to strive for a path that can save her career and her baby. Her partner Takashi (Mark Takeshi Ota), whose thoughts by his own admission are shaped by the social norms that have served men so well, considers no compromise is possible.
As the lead characters, Ota and Hingley are by Western standards unnaturally restrained as they grapple with one of the biggest emotional questions any couple can face: “baby or no baby”. Mostly, their feelings are conveyed only by their clenched fists, although we watch Hingley’s tears silently flow, as shown on the screens that form part of the capsule living set.
The issues are nevertheless universal, and the rigidity of Takashi is a refreshingly honest reminder of how all-but impossible it is to establish equality in a heterosexual relationship, let alone in wider society, when the odds are biologically stacked against women.
One Small Step
Venue: Charing Cross Theatre, London
Writer & Director – Takuya Kato
English Translation – Andrew and Mika Eglinton
Producer – Umeda Arts Theater
Cast: Susan Momoko Hingley and Mark Takeshi Ota
Running time: 70 minutes
Japan’s Umeda Arts Theater, based in Osaka, began collaborating with London’s Charing Cross Theatre in 2019.
It’s now back after a break for the pandemic and then a joint venture with London’s Menier Chocolate Factory last year.
Drawing on Neil Armstrong’s lunar quote, the programme note tells us cross-cultural theatre collaboration is still at the “small step” stage. Not only the title of the play, it is pertinent to the size of the leap required to eliminate the gap between British and Japanese audiences.
Eliminating it altogether is not necessarily desirable as shaking the audience out of its cultural complacency and making it question how it should react only adds to the dramatic tension.
Takuya Kato, director as well as writer, has delivered a script that delves into a particularly Japanese form of obedience to a big corporation, whose mission happens to be to colonise the moon, and what that means for personal relationships.
The major plot complication takes the form of the news Narumi (Susan Momoko Hingley) is pregnant, prompting her to strive for a path that can save her career and her baby. Her partner Takashi (Mark Takeshi Ota), whose thoughts by his own admission are shaped by the social norms that have served men so well, considers no compromise is possible.
As the lead characters, Ota and Hingley are by Western standards unnaturally restrained as they grapple with one of the biggest emotional questions any couple can face: “baby or no baby”. Mostly, their feelings are conveyed only by their clenched fists, although we watch Hingley’s tears silently flow, as shown on the screens that form part of the capsule living set.
The issues are nevertheless universal, and the rigidity of Takashi is a refreshingly honest reminder of how all-but impossible it is to establish equality in a heterosexual relationship, let alone in wider society, when the odds are biologically stacked against women.
Barbara Lewis.
By Stephen McGrath • plays, theatre, year 2024 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre