The Lady Aoi

‘The Lady Aoi’ (pronounced Ah-we) is Black Swan’s new production at the Playhouse in Perth. It is ingeniously directed by Michael Lutton and is showing at 8.00 pm until February 17^th.

At 50 minutes, this I quite a short play, but it is quality not quantity that counts. Thanks to the absolutely brilliant sound design (Kingsley Reeve), lighting (Nick Higgins), mechanics (David O’Halloran) and extreme perspective set (Bryan Woltjen) which has a 40 degree floor rake. The Rapunzel opening is one to remember.

There then follows three actor entries which are either unique, or forever memorable. The first 10 minutes one just gasped in amazement. Ash Gibson Greig’s music – as always was appropriate and superbly presented.

The play of ‘Lady Aoi’ is based on an original 1000 year old Japanese story, which has been updated by Yukio Mishima. The new story line has different symbolism to the original, but is still most effective and retains the ghostly atmosphere of the first. Lady Aoi (Claudia Alessi) is in a coma in hospital and undergoing some strange and radical therapy from an unusual nurse (Samantha Murray). Whilst Lady Aoi’s husband (Keagan Kang) is visiting her, he hears of an old lady (Michelle Fornasier) that makes frequent visits at odd hours. He waits, and finds it is someone from his past.

The acting style is different to the normal run of the mill, but skilfully executed. The moving images on the ‘live’ walls were photographically beautiful and technically brilliant (Sohan Ariel Hayes). However after about half an hour, I found my attention drifting slightly. So why was this? The script. Sadly, it was like getting a particularly beautiful box of chocolates, great wrapping, presentation but on biting, being a little disappointed. 

Thanks to the immense talents of the technicians and actors, the show is still very much worth going to see. A special mention for Claudia, who lived through blood, sweat, tears and major suffering for her craft.  A definite experience in the theatre.

(Spoiler alert - plot details) I agree with all of the points in the above review. The sound (apart from volume, we put in earplugs!), lighting, set and especially multimedia elements were all gorgeous. Definitely worth seeing, even just to be gobsmacked by the beautiful production. Awesome work from this emerging director. The thing that really disturbed me though was the gender-politics issue. Perhaps it's partly cultural, and perhaps the play is a bit dated, but the roles of the women could only be described as misogynistic cliches. The Good Wife (Lady Aoi, played with incredible dedication by Claudia Alessi) suffers silently throughout the entire duration of the play, for absolutely no fault of her own. She pays for the sins of her husband at the hand of his former lover, just a passive victim/whipping boy. This is never questioned - the husband doesn't ask to be punished instead of her, he just seems to accept that it's her lot to be tortured. The Ballbuster (Yasuko Rojuko, played by Michelle Fornasier - who is actually young and very beautiful, not old or even middle-aged as we are told) who wants to possess the husband, body and soul, at any cost. I don't know if we have such a predatory, all-consuming evil-female-spirit equivalent in western stereotypes, but it's a fairly common role in Japanese tradition. Not quite a 'crone' image as she wants to possess more than destroy. The Nymphomaniac (Nurse, played with Rocky-Horrorlike zest by Samantha Murray) is a one-dimensional lust machine, complete with all the right lap-dancin' moves. No compassion for her patient, or even acknowledgment of Lady Aoi's humanity. The husband (Keagan Kang) appears to be the one we're supposed to sympathise with, since we never really get to know the wife. The only small vestige of responsibility he admits for his wife's suffering is because he is 'weak' (and therefore cannot possibly resist the evil-female-spirit's power). I'm not usually the angry-feminist type, but the gender politics in this play just made me cringe. On the other hand, my 24yo hubby shrugged and said "It's like a Final Fantasy plot, they're always like that." The set reminded me a little of the Blue Room's Scarecrow in 2006 with the raked stage, although it also used projection to really bring the simple minimalist set to life. Lady Aoi was one of the best integrations of multimedia I've seen in theatre - not just digital set-dressing, and yet not dominating in it's technical wizardry. A perfect balance. The part where the 'old lady' grew long, dark digital hair was really beautiful. Big thumbs-up to Black Swan for putting on such a visionary production - although perhaps the choice of material was a bit unfortunate. A female actor suffering this much at the hands of a male director and a male writer is bound to be a bit off-putting to some, regardless of the fact that it's based on a 1000 year old Japanese legend. I wondered if the director had any ethical dilemmas over what Alessi goes through each performance. It's worth noting that the author, Yukio Mishima, committed ritual suicide in 1970 as a protest against modern Japanese decadence (perhaps things like the birth of feminism?). Definitely recommended, and one of the most affordable of this year's PIAF performances. I suggest you pack some ear-plugs though...