“Lolla-Palooka”
By John K. Gillespie
(guest reviewer)
From time to time Theatre's Leiter
Side will be posting reviews of Off-Off Broadway shows my schedule
prevents me from seeing. If you are interested in reviewing Off-Off
Broadway, please contact me so we can discuss. I hope you find the
expanded coverage useful. Sam Leiter
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| Kazuma Takeo, Takuro Takasaki. Photo: Richard Termine. |
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| Kazuma Takeo, Takuro Takasaki, G.K. Masayuki. Photo: Richard Termine. |
That pithy description could also apply to his
most recent Shakespeare adaptation, Ashita
no Ma-Joe: Rocky Macbeth, which just finished a brief visit to the Japan
Society. Its title draws on the wildly popular manga and subsequent animé Ashita no Joe in the late 1960s and
early 70s, and particularly on Shakespeare’s witches (majo means “witch” in Japanese), not to mention the notion of
“tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” as ominously rendered with the title word ashita (Japanese for “tomorrow”).
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| : G.K. Masayuki, Takuro Takasaki. Photo: Richard Termine. |
The original manga is the soapy
tale of a confused youth, an orphan and ex-con, whose itinerary through life,
challenging at every turn, leads him to become a professional boxer and to covet
a championship belt, all of which is conflated with the rise and sordid
downfall of the upwardly manipulated Macbeth; it’s unquestionably a rocky path
for both boxer and Macbeth, with a not-so-faint shadow of Sly Stallone’s Rocky.
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Takuro Takasaki, Kazuma Takeo. Photo: Richard Termine.
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| Kazuma Takeo, G.K. Masayuki, Takuro Takasaki. Photo: Richard Termine. |
Murai first staged Ashita no Ma-Joe: Rocky Macbeth in Tokyo
in 2017 at Shimokitazawa’s Honda Gekijō, iconic mecca for experimental theatre.
The performance at the Japan Society
opened on what looked to be a traditional boxing ring, in the middle of which
was a miniature boxing ring, its floor a mat of rubbery material. Everything
was white, including the three actors, all dressed in white spandex bodysuits,
facilitating the blindingly rapid changes from one character to the next,
including Macbeth, Witches, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Ghost of Banquo, Malcolm, Macduff,
and others.
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| Takuro Takasaki, G.K. Masayuki, Kazuma Takeo. Photo: Richard Termine. |
The action opens with Joe lamenting
his hardscrabble life and Macbeth his own life in frigid, filthy, remote
Scotland. Suddenly, Macbeth encounters the witches, who are ensconced under the
ring-within-the-ring mat, punctuating their lines with their heads successively
popping up against the rubbery mat, as though in a game of whack-a-mole. The
ineluctable augury of this stark opening scene hits the spectator full force,
vividly adumbrating the projected rise and fall from grace.
Murai’s stage action is quick and
snappy, the full play lasting only about one hour. Primarily with the witches,
then the other characters, narrating but also commenting on the actions that
they themselves are undertaking, the story of the boxer’s and Macbeth’s ups and
downs is conveyed in a kind of frame tale, one scene seamlessly linked to the
next. It also becomes apparent that the smaller ring-within-the ring with the
rubbery mat—a frame within a frame—features each scene as a mini-play-within-the-play.
That realization is woven into the action by several techniques, including the witches’ rapid wordplay melding together “mat,” “mad,” “man,” even “Macbeth.” All those words are uttered in English, not translated. The witches pronounce the pithy conclusion, “we are the mat,” confirming that it not only serves as the backbone of the frame-tale and play-within-the-play structure, it actually functions as a character in the play. It’s an ingenious meta-technique that, by the second or third scene, has us fully within the play’s grip.
That realization is woven into the action by several techniques, including the witches’ rapid wordplay melding together “mat,” “mad,” “man,” even “Macbeth.” All those words are uttered in English, not translated. The witches pronounce the pithy conclusion, “we are the mat,” confirming that it not only serves as the backbone of the frame-tale and play-within-the-play structure, it actually functions as a character in the play. It’s an ingenious meta-technique that, by the second or third scene, has us fully within the play’s grip.
Murai follows the ill-fated itineraries of the manga-boxer—would-be
champion Joe and would-be king Macbeth—juxtaposing them, linking them, and punctuating
the action throughout with wordplay and other laughter-inducing devices. For
example, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth at one point early on wonder aloud if they
are “punch-drunk” for not seeing what is in front of them. Then the sound of
the morning bell that Macbeth hears is conflated with the gong of a boxing
knockout, and King Duncan’s murder by knife is described, in boxing terms, as
“a jab attack.”
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| Kazuma Takeo, Takuro Takasaki. Photo: Richard Termine. |
After the deed is done, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
discuss breaking bread together: “Let’s eat Le Pain Quotidien,” which modulates to
“Panquo” (the Japanese word for bread is pan)
then “Banquo.” And their bloodthirsty drive is magnified by a brief sumo-inspired
sketch, which struck me as reminiscent of the humorous kyōgen interlude between the seriousness of two nō plays.
Then, midway through, two characters don hardhats for a tête-à-tête and
are pelleted with crushed rocks during their conversation. The two are probably
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but their lines come so fast and furious that others’
comments may also be included.
The nonstop falling rocks, of course, symbolize the world crumbling
around boxer Joe and the sociopathic, would-be monarchs. Moreover, the stones
are now all over a good part of the boxing-ring stage, making it amazingly
challenging, even painful, simply to walk (the actors were all barefoot),
re-enforcing the inexorably deteriorating universe of the principal characters.
But there are humorous moments throughout, as, for example, the
appearance of a traveling T-shirt salesman at the concluding banquet where
Macbeth alone sees the ghost of Banquo. In fact, when the salesman with his
oily PR hype comments on the fine touch of the T-shirts’ artistic illustration,
Macbeth sees it as “looking exactly like the ghost of Banquo.” This, truly, is
a perilous game of thrones.
The play’s ending is ambiguous, as it was for the ending of Ashita no Joe, who, in his title bout
against champion José Mendoza, refuses to lose and gets beaten to a pulp. Is he
dead? Yes or no, that controversy continues all these years later. And Macbeth?
In Scotland, he says, “I could not find a corner of my own. I am a man who was
once called Macbeth. Who . . . am I?” So we are not certain that either
Tomorrow’s Joe or Rocky Macbeth is dead. Take your pick.
The play is meant as entertainment, but, at the same time, it makes use
of popular culture that is deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche, calling
attention to the sort of striving that impels those like Joe and Macbeth to
betray the highest human values. Moreover, Murai has put the two familiar
stories together in a fascinating way to give us by the very comparison, new
insight that a serious consideration of only one of the tales might well
ignore.
Murai’s three actors, Takuro Takasaki, G.K. Masayuki, and Kazuma Takeo,
are quite adept at the quicksilver action and, apart from some deafening
declamation (reminiscent of the early angura
[underground] theatre movement of the 60s and 70s), in full keeping with
Murai’s favored approach to stage action. Finally, video designer Kazuki
Watanabe provides excellent special effects.
Yu Murai is a playwright and director to keep an eye on. He has been
widely recognized in Japan for his work, receiving the Encouragement Award at
the Toga Theatre Competition (granted by the Japan Performing Arts Foundation
(2013); the Setagaya-ku Arts award in the Performing Arts category (2014); and
the Director Award at the 7th Sengawa Theatre Competition (2016).
Ashita no Ma-Joe: Rocky Macbeth
Japan Society
333 E. 47th St., NYC
Five performance run already closed
John K. Gillespie, who holds a PhD from
Columbia University, is an internationally respected scholar and translator of modern
Japanese drama.
