By Louise
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USAMQlXkILc&feature=emb_logo
Available until: 21st September 2020
Missing People is a very interesting play by Brad
Birch with parts translated into Japanese by Keiko Tsumeda. I think the title
refers to a few different things. The characters miss the people who aren’t there.
They have also missed the people they haven’t seen for a long time. But I think
maybe it’s also about the fact that sometimes, we don’t always see people as
they are and that could be a sort of missing people too because we’re missing what
is really going on in their lives.
Sakiko and Dan are planning their wedding. They travel with Dan’s mother Linda to Japan to meet Sakiko’s parents. Even Sakiko has barely seen them since she moved to the UK. There is a bit of awkwardness when they arrive, but that is not surprising. Sakiko’s parents don’t speak very much English. Dan speaks only a few phrases of Japanese. Linda doesn’t know any. Sakiko has to translate and it’s difficult to get into a rhythm with that.
On the other hand, the need for translation can be helpful.
It is easy to say the wrong thing when you don’t know what to say and the
mistakes don’t need to be translated.
They seem like two happy families getting to know each
other. But a man is seen lurking in the garden. Sakiko can’t make contact with
her brother. Almost everyone has a secret which they’re hiding. It could be
that they can’t find the words. It could be that they are scared nobody will
listen. It could be that they think it’s something they need to hide from other
people. There are cultural differences between the British and Japanese
characters, which means they behave in different ways and feel different
obligations, but this play seems to show that we all have the same fears and
sadness inside.
Mark Rosenblatt and Nobuhiro Nishikawa are co-directors and
they have presented this story very well. Scene transitions are smooth and not
confusing. The play includes examples of Japanese culture which are woven into
the play in a clever and subtle way – they never seen to be put into the scene
just so we can see it and learn from it. It is always part of the story.
The set is designed by Rumi Matsui and it consists of
movable pillars and suspended columns, as well as a few items of furniture. The
pillars and columns give the impression of a structure which means every room
or space represented onstage is slightly different. The pillars and columns
change colour and display images and videos which were designed by Kei
Urashima. I really liked it.
Some of the play is in Japanese. There are subtitles for the
Japanese sections even if you don’t have the youtube subtitles switched on.
When Dan and Linda are talking to Sakiko’s parents, Sakiko translates and it
doesn’t seem odd or annoying for her to be translating words I have already
seen in the subtitles. It’s very interesting that they often use several
sentences to say something, but Sakiko sums up what they’d said in a few words..
It was also interesting to see which parts weren’t translated at all.
There are some quite long scenes which are spoken in
Japanese when Dan and Linda aren’t there. I don’t know how the translation
would have been provided in the theatre, maybe there are surtitles like at the
opera. I like opera so I’m used to watching people onstage who are
communicating in languages I don’t know and it didn’t seem strange to me at
all, but I’m not sure how easily people who aren’t used to that sort of thing
would be able to adapt to it. Some of the scenes are very long.
The acting was very good and I liked all the emotion in the
Japanese, especially as I felt like I could understand the emotions even though
I didn’t understand the individual words. Susan Momoko Hingley is lovely as
Sakiko, she works so hard to try to support everyone and bring people closer
together. Simon Darwen is a very sweet Dan. He is very relaxed and accepting
and really seems to want to make everyone feel more comfortable.
Natsumi Nanase is warm and welcoming as Sakikio’s mother
Chiyo. Ishia Bennison is very similar in many ways to Linda. She’s less formal,
but she is very warm and it really seems like the two mothers make a
connection. Yutaka Oda seems less friendly as Sakiko’s father Masaru, but I
felt he was stressed rather than rude. Hiroki Tanaka (who has a really lovely
scene with Linda) and Yasuko Nakamura play smaller roles, but they are all
interesting characters with their own story and their own problems. I really do
like the way all the characters are written and performed.
There are sad and worrying moments in this play, but I
really like it because it’s all about people trying to do their best (even if
they make the wrong decisions sometimes) and wanting to be kind and help each
other. A lot of modern plays and TV programmes are about cruelty and hate. It’s
lovely to see a play about nice people.
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