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MONTHLY CLASSICS: STRAY DOG

Takashi Shimura and Toshirō Mifune team up as detectives tracking a stolen gun in Akira Kurosawa’s STRAY DOG

STRAY DOG (野良犬) (NORA INU) (Akira Kurosawa, 1949)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, April 1, $12, 7:00
Series continues first Friday of every month
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Akira Kurosawa’s thrilling police procedural, Stray Dog, is one of the all-time-great film noirs. When newbie detective Murakami (Toshirō Mifune) gets his Colt lifted on a trolley, he fears he’ll be fired if he does not get it back. But as he searches for the weapon, he discovers that it is being used in a series of robberies and murders — for which he feels responsible. Teamed with seasoned veteran Sato (Takashi Shimura), Murakami risks his career — and his life — as he tries desperately to track down his gun before it is used again. Kurosawa makes audiences sweat, showing postwar Japan in the midst of a brutal heat wave, with Murakami, Sato, dancer Harumi Namiki (Keiko Awaji), and others constantly mopping their brows — the heat is so palpable, you can practically see it dripping off the screen. (You’ll find yourself feeling relieved when Sato hits a button on a desk fan, causing it to turn toward his face.) In his third of sixteen films made with Kurosawa, Mifune plays Murakami with a stalwart vulnerability, working beautifully with Shimura’s cool, calm cop who has seen it all and knows how to handle just about every situation. (Shimura was another Kurosawa favorite, appearing in twenty-one of his films.)

Rookie detective Murakami (Toshirō Mifune) often finds himself in the shadows in STRAY DOG

Mifune is often seen through horizontal or vertical gates, bars, curtains, shadows, window frames, and wire, as if he’s psychologically and physically caged in by his dilemma — and as time goes on, the similarities between him and the murderer grow until they’re almost one and the same person, dealing ever-so-slightly differently with the wake of the destruction wrought on Japan in WWII. Inspired by the novels of Georges Simenon and Jules Dassin’s The Naked City, Stray Dog is a dark, intense drama shot in creepy black and white by Asakazu Nakai and featuring a jazzy soundtrack by Fumio Hayasaka that unfortunately grows melodramatic in a few key moments — and oh, if only that final scene had been left on the cutting-room floor. It also includes an early look at Japanese professional baseball. Kurosawa would soon become the most famous Japanese auteur in the world, going on to make Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, The Bad Sleep Well, The Lower Depths, and I Live in Fear in the next decade alone. Stray Dog will be screening on April 1 in Japan Society’s “Monthly Classics” series, and it well deserves its place there. The series continues May 6 with Yasujirō Ozu’s I Was Born, But . . . and June 3 with Sion Sono’s Love Exposure.

WOMEN ON THE RISE: SLEEP

Haruki Murakami fans can get a sneak peek at the work-in-progress version of SLEEP this weekend at Japan Society

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
February 26-28, $20
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

“This is my seventeenth straight day without sleep. I’m not talking about insomnia.” So begins Haruki Murakami’s short story “Sleep,” which can be found in his 1993 collection of short stories, The Elephant Vanishes. The tale of a Japanese housewife who is “both a body on the verge of sleep and a mind determined to stay awake” is being adapted into a stage production by Obie-winning troupes Ripe Time (The World Is Round, And Suddenly a Kiss . . .) and the Play Company (Abyss, The Wildness); a work-in-progress will be shown February 26-28 at Japan Society. Although only two of his novels (Hear the Wind Sing and Norwegian Wood) and one of his short stories (Tony Takitani) have been turned into feature films, two of his books (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore) and many of his short stories have been adapted for the stage, including three tales from The Elephant Vanishes that were combined in Simon McBurney’s production for the 2004 Lincoln Center Festival. An investigation into roles and boundaries, Sleep is part of Japan Society’s “Women on the Rise” initiative, highlighting works by women who are making a difference in their field. Sleep is directed and devised by Ripe Time founder Rachel Dickstein, adapted by Naomi Iizuka (Language of Angels, 17 Reasons [Why]), and performed by Akiko Aizawa, Brad Culver, Takemi Kitamura, Paula McGonagle, Jiehae Park, and Saori Tsukada. The original score is composed and played live by Katie Down and NewBorn Trio (Down and Miguel Frasconi on glass objects and Jeffrey Lependorf on shakuhachi), with set design by Mimi Lien, projections by Hannah Wasileski, lighting by Jiyoun Chang, and costumes by Ilona Somogyi. Although the three-show run is sold out, keep checking the box office should tickets become available on February 24; otherwise, you’ll have to wait until 2017 when the final version comes to New York City. The February 26 performance will be followed by a reception with the artists.

MONTHLY CLASSICS: THE SWORD OF DOOM

Rogue samurai Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai) leaves a path of bodies behind him in THE SWORD OF DOOM

THE SWORD OF DOOM (大菩薩峠) (THE GREAT BODHISATTVA PATH) (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, February 5, $12, 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s Monthly Classics series continues February 5 with the story of one of the screen’s most brutal antiheroes, a samurai you can’t help but root for despite his coldhearted brutality, a heartless killer called “a man from hell.” Based on Kaizan Nakazato’s forty-one-volume serial novel Dai-bosatsu Tōge, Kihachi Okamoto’s The Sword of Doom, aka The Great Bodhisattva Pass, begins in 1860 with Ryunosuke Tsukue (Tatsuya Nakadai) slaying an elderly Buddhist pilgrim (Ko Nishimura) apparently for no reason as the man visits a far-off mountain grave. Shortly before Ryunosuke is to battle Bunnojo Utsuki (Ichiro Nakaya) in a competition using unsharpened wooden swords, the man’s wife, Ohama (Michiyo Aratama), comes to him, begging for Ryunosuke to lose the match on purpose to save her family’s future. A master swordsman with an unorthodox style, Ryunosuke takes advantage of the situation in more ways than one. As emotionless as he is fearless, Ryunosuke is soon ambushed on a forest road, but killing, to him, comes natural, whether facing one man or dozens — or even hundreds. The only person he shows even the slightest respect for is Toranosuke Shimada (Toshirō Mifune), the instructor at a sword-fighting school. “We have rules concerning strangers,” Toranosuke tells him, but Ryunosuke plays by no rules. “The sword is the soul. Study the soul to know the sword. Evil mind, evil sword,” Toranosuke adds, words that torment Ryunosuke, who tries to start a family in spite of his hard, detached demeanor. But regardless of circumstance, Ryunosuke continues on his bloody path, culminating in an unforgettable battle that is one of the finest of the jidaigeki genre.

A snowy battle is one of the many highlights of Kihachi Okamoto classic

The Sword of Doom boasts a memorable performance by Nakadai, the star of such other classics as Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri, Hiroshi Teshigara’s The Face of Another and Samurai Rebellion, and Okamoto’s Battle of Okinawa and Kill!, as well as many Akira Kurosawa films, including Yojimbo, Sanjuro, High and Low, and Ran. In The Sword of Doom he is reunited with Aratama, who played his wife in Okamoto’s masterpiece trilogy, The Human Condition. Nakadai is brilliant as Ryunosuke, able to win over the audience, riveting your attention even though he is portraying a horrible man who rejects all sympathy. Also contributing to the film’s relentless intensity are Hiroshi Murai’s gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, which features a beautiful sword fight in the snow and an exquisitely photographed scene in a claustrophobic mill, and Masaru Sato’s sparse but effective score. The Sword of Doom is a masterful tale of evil, of one man’s struggle with inner demons as he wanders through a changing world. The Monthly Classics series continues on April 1 with Kurosawa’s Stray Dog.

UNDER THE RADAR — TOSHIKI OKADA: GOD BLESS BASEBALL

Toshiki Okada steps up to the plate with his political allegory, GOD BLESS BASEBALL (photo © Julie Lemberger)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
January 14-17, $35
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.publictheater.org

Toshiki Okada uses America’s national pastime to explore the relationship between Japan, Korea, and the United States in God Bless Baseball, making its North American premiere this weekend at Japan Society as part of the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival. The Yokohama-born playwright and director doesn’t begin God Bless Baseball with the traditional “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” but instead with “Mickey Mouse March,” the theme from The Mickey Mouse Club, as two young women, one Korean (Sung Hee Wi), one Japanese (Aoi Nozu), take the stage. Sung and Aoi are marvelous, their odd gestures, a hallmark of Okada’s style, epitomizing “awkward” as they discuss how they don’t understand the rules of baseball. They are standing at the front of controversial visual artist Tadasu Takamine’s primarily black set: a small baseball diamond with four white bases; a pair of scoreboard-like monitors, one for Korean, the other for Japanese surtitles; a bucket of balls; and a twelve-sided polygon high on the wall behind home plate; the quirky costumes are by Kyoko Fujitani. The two women are soon joined by a man (Yoon Jae Lee) who attempts to explain the rules of the game, even though he admits that he is not a fan of the sport. They delve into offense and defense, strikes and innings, free time and boredom, and how their fathers love the game. “OK, so that’s all clear and great but I still don’t really understand like what kind of sport baseball is, ultimately,” the Japanese girl says. “For those of us who don’t understand anything about baseball, it was honestly pretty opaque,” the Korean girl adds. Soon an Ichiro impersonator (Pijin Neji) arrives, carrying a bat and wearing the Seattle great’s number, 51, on the back of his spectacularly hip hoodie. He references the March 2006 controversy when Ichiro, playing for Japan against Korea in the World Baseball Classic, may or may not have dissed his opponents, which set off a new hostility between two nations that already had a bad history. “It was just a misunderstanding,” Ichiro says while taking practice cuts. Things get even more surreal when the polygon starts talking to the characters in a disembodied voice that is part umpire, part godlike figure. “It’s no use lying to me,” the very American voice intones. “Place your hand upon your heart and tell me the truth.”

Okada, who has previously presented such works as Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech and Five Days in March at Japan Society with his chelfitsch theater company, creates just the right mood in this clever allegory, capturing the complications of not only the game of baseball itself but the relationships between parents and children as well as political tensions in Asia. Casting America as the spiritual father of Korea and Japan when it comes to baseball, two cousins who do not get along very well, Okada also throws in a few fastballs at corporate culture, gently mocking sponsorship and the more capitalist aspects of the sport. The four actors are excellent, especially in a late dance segment in which they give up control of their bodies. And as a sweet bonus, when you enter Japan Society, you’ll be met by two women hawking small, adorable bags of Tohato caramel corn. You definitely don’t need to know anything about baseball to enjoy this delightful, metaphorical romp, so don’t be afraid to step up to the plate and take a swing.

MONTHLY CLASSICS: GATE OF HELL

Machiko Kyō stars as a married woman being chased by an obsessed samurai in Teinosuke Kinugasa’s GATE OF HELL

GATE OF HELL (地獄門) (JIGOKUMON) (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1953)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, January 8, $12, 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s January edition of its Monthly Classics series harkens back to its past with Teinosuke Kinugasa’s lush, vibrant jidaigeki film, Gate of Hell; the society sponsored the movie’s U.S. premiere at the Guild Theatre in December 1954, the first Japanese color film ever to be shown in America. Set during the twelfth-century Heiji Rebellion, the samurai drama, based on a play by Kan Kikuchi, focuses on Morito Endo’s (Kazuo Hasegawa) dark, absurd obsession with Lady Kesa (Machiko Kyō), a married woman who is very much in love with her husband, Wataru Watanabe (Isao Yamagata). After protecting Lady Kesa and helping defend his lord, Morito is offered whatever he wants by Kiyomori the Monk (Koreya Senda). The court laughs at Morito when he asks for Lady Kesa’s hand in marriage, but when Kiyomori decides to humor him, Morito opts to pursue his goal, no matter the cost, or the humiliation.

Teinosuke Kinugasa’s award-winning GATE OF HELL is filled with lush colors and beautiful cinematography

Gate of Hell, which won the Grand Prix at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival and Best Costume Design (Sanzo Wada) and a special Honorary Foreign Language Film Award at the 1955 Oscars, was beautifully restored a few years ago, its dazzling colors now jumping off the screen in a barrage of eye-catching orange, turquoise, purples, greens, and reds. Kōhei Sugiyama’s breathtaking cinematography spectacularly captures Wada’s gorgeous costumes and both the indoor and outdoor sets, the deep, detailed compositions giving the film a rousing 3D feel, from a single red flower in a green field to two rows of men lined up in a room to a battle scene in the woods. The leads will be very familiar to Japanese film fans; Hasegawa appeared in nearly three hundred movies, including Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Crucified Lovers and Kinugasa’s Jujiro and Tsukigata Hanpeita, among others, while Kyō starred in Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu and Street of Shame, Yasujirō Ozu’s Floating Weeds, and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another. The Monthly Classics series continues on February 5 with Kihachi Okamoto’s The Sword of Doom.

UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL

Dorothée Munyaneza and Compagnie Kadidi’s SAMEDI DÉTENTE is part of Public Theater’s annual Under the Radar Festival (photo by Laura Fouqueré)

The Public Theater unless otherwise noted
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
January 6-17, $25 unless otherwise noted
212-967-7555
www.undertheradarfestival.com

The Public Theater’s 2016 Under the Radar Festival features eighteen innovative music, dance, and theater hybrids from around the globe, taking place primarily at the Public’s many stages. The fun begins with the French duo of Halory Goerger and Antoine Defoort and Germinal (January 6-9, the Public’s Newman Theater), who use the magic of theater to build the world from scratch. Lars Jan and Early Morning Opera combine a 1950s typewriter with kinetic light sculptures in The Institute of Memory (TIMe) (January 8-17, the Public’s Martinson Hall), as Jan delves into his father’s past as a Cold War operative. Director Andrew Scoville, composer Joe Drymala, technologist Dave Tennent, and writer Jaclyn Backhaus team up for the live podcast People Doing Math Live! (January 8 & 17, the Public’s Shiva Theater), complete with audience participation. Canadian duo Liz Paul and Bahia Watson’s two-woman show pomme is french for apple returns to Joe’s Pub on January 10 & 17, exploring womanhood in unique ways. DarkMatter, the trans South Asian spoken-word duo of Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian, will perform the concert #ItGetsBitter at Joe’s Pub on January 12 & 14. Individual tickets for Martha Redbone’s new Bone Hill (January 13-16, Joe’s Pub), a collaboration with Aaron Whitby and Roberta Uno, are sold out, but you can still catch the show as part of a UTR Pack (five shows for $100). Nikki Appino and Saori Tsukuda’s Club Diamond (January 13 & 17, Shiva) combines silent film, live music, and Japanese techniques to explore the concept of truth in thirty-five minutes. Dorothée Munyaneza, who was born in Rwanda and currently lives in France, brings her Compagnie Kadidi to the Public’s LuEsther Hall for Samedi détente (January 14-17), looking back at the 1994 genocide, joined by Ivorian dancer Nadia Beugré and French musician Alain Mahé. Japan’s Toshiki Okada, who was previously at UTR in 2011 with Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech and in 2013 with the Pig Iron Theatre Company for Zero Cost House, will be back at Japan Society with God Bless Baseball (January 14-17, $35), which examines America’s pastime in Korea and Japan.

Canadian Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq takes a unique look at NANOOK OF THE NORTH at Under the Radar Festival (photo by Nadya Kwandibens)

Canadian Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq will perform live to Robert J. Flaherty’s 19922 silent film, Nanook of the North, January 15-17 at the Newman, reclaiming her heritage, joined by percussionist Jean Martin and violinist Jesse Zubot. The 2016 Under the Radar Festival also includes 600 Highwaymen’s Employee of the Year (January 7-17, Martinson Hall), Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble’s The Art of Luv (Part I): Elliot (January 8-17, the Public’s Anspacher Theater), Sister Sylvester’s They Are Gone But Here Must I Remain (January 9 & 16, Shiva), I Am a Boys Choir’s demonstrating the imaginary body or how i became an ice princess (January 10 & 16, Shiva), Ahamefule J. Oluo’s Now I’m Fine (January 12-17, Newman), Guillermo Calderón’s Escuela (January 13-17, LuEsther Hall), Wildcat!’s I Do Mind Dying — Danse Précarité (January 14 & 17, Shiva), and Dane Terry’s Bird in the House (January 15-16, Shiva). In addition, numerous performances will be followed by Q&As with members of the creative teams, and there will be two free round-table discussions at the Public, “Assembly Required: New Media, New Dramaturgies” with Jan, André M. Zachery, and others on January 16 at noon and “Destroyer of Worlds” with Janani Balasubramanian, Abigail Browde, Calderón, Michael Silverstone, and Vaid-Menon on January 17 at noon.

A NIGHT OF KYOGEN WITH MANSAKU NOMURA AND MANSAKU-NO-KAI KYOGEN COMPANY

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
December 10-12, $55-$85, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.mansaku.co.jp

A Living National Treasure of Japan, Mansaku Nomura brings the troupe founded by his father in 1957, the Mansaku-no-Kai Kyogen Company, to Japan Society for three nights of performances of the six-hundred-year-old art form known as kyogen, a uniquely Japanese take on satirically comedic theater that was a kind of alternative to the much more serious noh discipline. (UNESCO has declared both to be Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.) Mansaku Nomura will be joined by his son, Mansai Nomura, and Yukio Ishida, each of whom has been designated a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property: Nohgaku, in three short plays each evening. In the solo piece Nasu no Yoichi, based on a chapter from The Tale of the Heike, Mansaku Nomura, who has been acting since he was three years old, trained in kyogen by his father and grandfather, portrays the title samurai who fought bravely in the Genpei War, in addition to three other characters. Mansai Nomura, who is most well known for playing Abe no Seimei in the two Onmyoji films and is also the artistic director of Setagaya Public Theatre, stars in Akutaro (Akutaro Reforms) as a young rebel seeking repentance. (Mansai Nomura was previously seen in New York City in March 2013 in Sanbaso, Divine Dance, a collaboration with Hiroshi Sugimoto that was copresented by Japan Society at the Guggenheim.) And in Bonsan (The Dwarf Tree Thief), a not-very-successful robber is intent on stealing a dwarf tree even as he’s taunted by the master of the house. At the center of kyogen is a focus on human imperfection, approached from a comic angle. Each performance will be preceded by a 6:30 lecture by Dr. Carolyn Morley, professor of Japanese literature and theater at Wellesley College. The celebration of kyogen, which means “mad words” or “wild speech,” also includes a Kyogen Movement Workshop for Kids on December 12 at 10:30 am ($20) and the adult program Kyogen Workshop: Movement + Voice on December 12 at 2:00 ($55), led by Mansai Nomura.