The art of patience – Glass reviews Basil Twist’s stunning craftsmanship and puppet-poetry, Dogugaeshi at The Barbican
Maybe it is something to do with the lure of television: as 21st-century westerners, we pay too little heed to the quiet stillness of Japanese art. It is ironic that a young New Yorker should bring us an ancient Japanese technique of puppetry, which the Barbican staged in the Pit. Dogugaeshi (Doh-goo-ga-ayshi) was developed centuries ago on the remote Awaji Island where puppet masters crafted intricately painted sliding screens set up on tracks.
By all rights, Basil Twist, a puppeteer of sublime restraint, should have been glossed over in our diversity-driven, overloaded, digital mind-set, but here he was, evoking the passage of time, igniting theatrical perspectives over and over again. Each scene was lovingly and enthusiastically painted on wooden screens, each perspective was given one precious view at a time.
The production features over 100 hand-painted scenes drawing from Japanese iconography, including the Koi fish and the dragon. These exquisite backdrops slide back and forth, revealing and concealing more screens. Geometric patterns are drawn in perspective to create dazzling optical illusions. One image – or one patterned screen – replaces another.
There are two live figures on the stage: one is a white fox with a handlebar moustache and fluffy tail who dances and flirts with the audience and plays hide and seek behind the screens. The other is the musician, Yumiko Tanaka. Dressed in traditional costume, she kneels on a revolving platform next to the stage playing the shamisen, a three-stringed instrument. At times the effect is downright frightening.
The use of music (whether it is from the western or Japanese canon or Tanaka’s original compositions) is integral to the performance. Radio broadcasts illustrate the passage of time and changing tastes, but the rhythms serve to accompany the movements of the panels, making them dance and imbuing each with a sense of magic. This is pure Shinto, or “the way of the gods”.
The live figures engross us but the main action centres on the screens, concealing and revealing what is finally shown to be a blueish-white light. The hint of eternity that infuses our longings.
Twist’s interpretation of this ancient art form has some edge, too, when he brings contemporary screens into play. These include films of elderly Japanese ladies recalling the building of a bridge that linked Awaji to the mainland as well as modernity. So, Twist shows us, traditions change just as the seasons change. Dogugaeshi is a stunning display of craftsmanship and puppet-poetry.
Twist’s interpretation is both homage and experimentation. The production is slow, and the momentum builds to a scary and poignant, captivating and beautiful climax. Dogugaeshi demands patience as a meditation on change and decay. It is perfect programming for a winter’s evening.
by Lilian Pizzichini