The Actors Co-op infuses a familiar story with dance and music
by Paige M. Travis
Folklore and fables teach us that greed is bad. Men and women meet their downfall by wanting what they can't have or attaining what they don't work for (and hence don't deserve). This is the lesson portrayed in The Crane Wife, a Japanese folktale adapted for the stage by Barbara Carlisle and produced through April 13 by the Actor's Co-op.
Kokuro is a poor farmer who lives alone in a rickety shack. One winter day as he is gathering firewood, he comes across a crane who has been shot by the arrow of a hunter. He carefully removes the arrow from the crane's snowy white breast, and she flies away. Soon after this incident, a beautiful woman shows up at his house asking to be taken in as his wife. Kokuro can't imagine what he's done to deserve this, but he takes her in and they begin a happy but humble life together.
But as Kokuro's poverty starts to get him down, his lovely bride offers to make him happier and themselves richer. She asks Kokuro to build a loom from which she will weave a cloth that he can sell at the market. The only catch is that he can't, under any circumstances, look at her while she weaves. This request for total privacy makes things difficult for the couple in the long run, and if you've read your share of fairy tales, you can probably figure out how this one turns out.
First-time director Francis Hamrick packs the play with interesting layers and elements that flesh it out and make it more than just a tale for children. She writes in her director's note that she has incorporated elements of theater and music from all over the world, including Japanese Kabuki. During several parts of the show, characters create the music: clapping bamboo sticks together, jingling bells, chiming triangles or just chant-ing in unison. The effect of the chanting and music, along with lights that go from dim white to red, and dancers pacing in a circle, is hypnotic and mesmerizing. We are transported into another world that isn't modern but is not so far from a familiar reality.
James Francis is a very humble and gentle Kokuro. You want him to succeed without messing up his life with the wrong choices. I couldn't help wondering if his lack of money didn't have something to do with his lack of a work ethic. He lets his wife practically kill herself weaving a mysterious cloth to support them. And then, after she begs him to never ask her to weave again, he does just that! Kokuro's weakness is a human vulnerability to the desires of "money, silver, money, gold." Bathed in the other-worldly red light, the chorus dances around him, tossing the heavy bag of coins, chanting the thoughts of his subconscious: "Why not you, Kokuro? Why not you?"
Leigh Ann Jernigan as Kokuro's ethereal wife looks the part. Decked out in gauzy white, her fair face is framed by impossibly shiny dark brown hair, and her smile exudes an immense love for her husband. She becomes more and more fragile after each turn at the loom, but her trust in Kokuro never falters. Because she loves him, she weaves, even though it takes days of sleepless labor to create the magical fabric that brings them a good price at the market. Again, I wondered if this woman wasn't sacrificing herself unnecessarily for this man who was neither too old or sick to find his own source of income. This may be an ancient tale, but the wife's plight is a valuable lesson for modern women: Don't compromise your happiness for a man who isn't doing his fair share.
The costumes allude to traditional Japanese dress without being replicas. The two narrators (played by Ashley-Paige Rollinson and Amandalynn Thomas) and the wife wear white while the rest of the cast including Kokuro wears black. The contrast highlights the luminous wife—her beauty and perfection and purity—and separates the narrators from the other characters.
The play is mostly serious, but it has its funny moments too. Buddy Lucas is a very John Belushi-like Samurai who offers Kokuro a bunch of silver coins for a length of cloth. The villagers fear his forceful manner and freely flying sword. Bo Boran is amusing as the enterprising neighbor who brokers the deal between Kokuro and the Samurai.
Perhaps the best part of the production is the dancing. Non-musical plays hardly ever feature dance, so to see a handful of actors twirling and leaping across the floor of the Black Box is a rare and wonderful treat. Rollinson and Thomas do a particularly good job as the "crane dancers."
Since the folktales of many lands resemble each other in plot and moral, Kokuro's fate isn't so surprising. But the visual representation of the climax is a stunning and satisfying end to the story. People of all ages interested in folklore of different cultures will be enlightened and enlivened by this production.
April 11, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 15
© 2002 Metro Pulse
| 
