Sadler's Wells Theatre, London
**
You might think a play that lasts in excess of three hours, covers the
events of fifteen years and is performed in English and Japanese with subtitles
sounds like it could be hard work, in the case of Anjin – The Shogun and the English Samurai you'd be right. Director
Gregory Doran takes control of a difficult show in which the characters
emotional journey's range from seemingly non-existent to incomprehensibly
drastic, whilst the narrative manages to be both overly simplistic and
simultaneously impossible to follow. So where does it all go wrong?
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| Photo: Takayuki Abe |
First of all, it should be fascinating. It is astonishing given the nature
of the source material that the story here appears to be so mundane. Anjin features at its centre William
Adams: wrecked on the shores of Japan in the year 1400, he is one of a handful
of survivors from a Dutch trade ship. At first his life is in danger; accused
of being a heretic by the local Jesuit priests, Adams avoids crucifixion and
goes on to become a personal samurai and confident of the Shogun of Japan. The
friendship that forms between these two men from such different cultures sees
them forced to question their most fundamental beliefs concerning faith, life,
death, home and love. The friendship should be gripping, but it isn't. The
politics that surround it could also be fascinating, given that most audiences
presumably won’t be experts in this tumultuous period in Japanese history. At
times moments of intrigue do poke their way through the general wash of
disgruntled rival leaders continuously attempting to overthrow the current
shogun. However, all too often the action loses meaning altogether, as the
intricacies of the family politics on display prove unfathomable.
The performances are odd, with various actors seeming so distanced from
their words that at times it looks as though they are deliberately playing a
sort of detached picture book style. The staging too is wildly inconsistent; a
fascinating and visually exciting opening tableau involving live action,
multimedia projection and shadow puppetry promises so much but quickly gives
way to a very traditional and uninteresting series of predominantly
naturalistic scenes. Only occasionally will the projection return, on each
occasion feeling more and more out of sync with the rest of the play. Watching Anjin it looks increasingly as though
what is on stage is not the story a writer desperately wanted to tell or an
adaptation a director was in love with but more an unsuccessful attempt to
deliver a history lesson, which it appears could be exactly the case. The play
is being performed as part of a celebration of 400 years of Anglo-Japanese trade
and as it goes on it can only really be understood in this context.
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| Photo: Takayuki Abe |
In September last year Director Gregory Doran was made the new Artistic
Director of the RSC, due reward for one of the worlds most consistent and
exciting directors, but here he is fighting a losing battle from the start. The
problems come from a text that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be: epic
history lesson or small-scale personal drama, not that both are unachievable
but here the feel lurches violently from one to the other never fully
committing to either. The problem is not the setting, length, subtitles or
subject matter. As Director Robert Lepage has proven time and again, it is
possible to tell very long stories in many languages that concern themselves
with similar themes of cultural conflict and personal turmoil whilst all the
time keeping the audience on side.
Anjin, isn’t terrible, it’s just boring. It is
neither exciting nor offensive, but treads the tedious line of benign and
uninspiring that makes for one of the most frustrating nights possible in the
theatre, made all the worse because it could be so much more.
This production runs until 9 February 2013.
For more information: http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Anjin-The-Shogun-and-The-English-Samurai
@Sadlers_Wells
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