Photo: Stephen EarnhartThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage and a dramatic revelation of long buried Second World War secrets.
Toru Okada is an unassuming everyman. His cat has disappeared, a seemingly innocuous event that triggers a series of increasingly bizarre encounters. His wife inexplicably vanishes, leading Toru on a search during which he encounters a strange and compelling cast of characters, each with their own intriguing stories. Crossing the boundary between reality and dreams, these interactions open doors to a hallucinatory world charged with sexuality and violence. As the lines between fantasy and reality dissolve, Toru must confront the dark forces that exist inside him to begin to understand the mystery of his life. Read more …
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is adapted from the award-winning novel by Japan's most celebrated writer, Haruki Murakami and directed by Stephen Earnhart, formerly Director of Production for Miramax Films where he oversaw such fi lms as A Rage in Harlem and Hardware. This truly imaginative production, combines performance, music, puppetry, dance and film to create a hypnotic theatre of dreams.
One is impressed by the possibilities of Murakami’s narrative, but perturbed by its uneasy relationship to Earnhart’s insufficiently coherent theatrical aesthetic.
Skilful but unsatisfying.
James Yaegashi’s finely nuanced Toru leads the strongly-talented 14-member US-Japanese cast in this memorably engrossing and richly imaginative production.
Grief encounter
Stephen Earnhart on The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
King's Theatre, Edinburgh from Saturday August 20, 2011, until Wednesday August 24, 2011. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/kings
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