EYES OF THE KAPPA: Japanese myths: Gate till 20 April

EYES OF THE KAPPA: adapted by the company from myths and legends of Japan
Gate Theatre: Tkts 020 7229 0706
Runs: 50 mins, no interval, till 20 April
Review: Vera Lustig, 1st April 2002

Gratingly twee story-telling. At 50 minutes, too long.
As I took my seat, a Teletubbyish figure scampered up to me. She wore the company costume of bright, shaggy top with wide trousers of a filmy, moth-wing fabric – an outfit at once exotic and, with the sweater's lavatory-seat-cover look, homey. This child-woman snuggled down disconcertingly close to my feet, fixing me with an unblinking stare. A furtive glance at my programme revealed that Miki Shirane had an MA from Goldsmiths and was therefore old enough to know better.

Sadly, she didn't. As the lights dimmed, Shirane joined an embarrassed Ramon Vaughan Williams in connecting with the inner child, gambolling with puppety movements and wordless chortling, before the rest of the company assembled to narrate/act stories of the Kappa in minimalist style.

According to Japanese mythology, the Kappa has the body of a tortoise, the head of a monkey, limbs lined with scales and a cavity at the top of its head containing a fluid said to be the source of its power. The Kappa's role was sometimes unclear in these enchanting, lyrical tales of shape-shifting and cunning shot through with a wise, gentle irony. Though the company strove to perform as a group, they failed to coalesce: the lived-in, expressive faces of the maturer performers – Jaqui Chan, Ruth Posner and Damien Thomas, seemed to occupy a different universe altogether from the cutesy wonderland of Shirane and Vaughan-Williams.

According to the programme notes for the Gate's season of yarn spinning: 'In a world radically shaken by the events of last September, we wanted to take the Gate back to the roots of theatre and to the simple sharing of stories . . . ' So, if you lived in blinkered, prelapsarian bliss before 11.09.01 jolted you into realising that the world is not a very pleasant or safe place, then, just perhaps, Eyes of the Kappa might be your cup of milky, over-sugared tea.

Cast:
Jacqui Chan
Ruth Posner
Miki Shirane
Damien Thomas
Ramon Vaughan Williams

Director: Simon Cox
Design: Mark Antee
Lighting: Simon Macer-Wright
Sound: Ian Dickinson

2002-04-16 09:40:00