A launch that should have been scrubbed
★☆☆☆☆
Takuya Kato’s foray into a near future in which humans are colonising is as dizzying an endeavour as Milla Clarke’s forever rotating set design and not in a good way. Opaque arguments and flimsy details depict a play that goes nowhere and characters that, though married (apparently), appear to have never experienced a meaningful conversation . Fundamental fissures mean this short play is dreary, frustrating and light years away from being audience-ready.
Set in vaguely futuristic Japan, Takashi and Narumi are preparing to go to the moon. Ready to join pioneers already established on the lunar surface but they’ve been hiding a secret. Fearful for the impact on their careers, they have kept their relationship and now marriage on the down low but now that Narumi is pregnant it changes everything. They seek to find a compromise on the way forward, discussing whether to keep the baby or whether they press pause on their aerospace ambitions, the script asking whether it is fair on each of them or the baby.
The most striking thing about this production is Milla Clarke’s set. A circular design that from the off slowly spins, the actors oddly orbited by a bathroom cubicle that if anything just gets in the way. To combat this the design also employs two camera operators that blast odd angles of the performances onto two screens hanging above the set. It all feels bloated and unnecessary, an attempt to dazzle where the script does not. Its effect is nauseating and pointless.
Kato’s script is cold and clinical as the two debate their viewpoints. Viewpoints that suddenly shift and change for no obvious reason, the only constant being the character’s absolute stubbornness in every conversation. Their inability to accept or even attempt to understand the other’s perspectives is irksome, leaving us with no empathy for them or their plight. The dialogue, direction and performances demonstrate zero affection within the supposedly married couple and I did not care about the outcome. The writing too falls into the aggravating sci-fi trope of thinking that it is far more clever than it is. Asking, what it perceives as, bold and cutting-edge questions that turn out to be entirely redundant or in the world it is building surely already answered.
It is hard to judge Susan Momoko Hingley and Mark Takeshi Ota’s performance as the couple at the centre of the play when the material given to them is so poor. They seemingly do their best to draw out some stakes or deviation from the monotonous pace but to no avail. Takuya Kato, who also directs his writing, injects nothing into the play, unable to (ironically) bring it to life.
Despite the quality of the production, it must be commended that the theatre has taken a risk on bringing more non-English writing, particularly with a lesser known writer. Sadly however, this play ties itself into complicated and unnecessary knots that it can’t escape from. It tries to distract with shiny gimmicks, hoping that you miss the glaring deficiencies and in the end is infuriating and painful.
Running until 9th October - Tickets
Photography - Mark Senior
