Hashirigaki

Company Theatre Vidy-Lausanne
Venue Kings Theatre
Address Leven St
Reviewer Thelma Good

Visually breathtaking and extraordinarily well-crafted, Heiner Goebbels' Hashirigaki captures you at the moment when it starts and holds you in its bewitching spell. Goebbels uses Japanese traditional music, that of the Beach Boys including the lyrics, and his own, interwoven with text from Gertrude Stein's The Making of the Americans. The nuances of its Japanese title - running, outlining, writing fluently, are here exemplified in a piece of performance art which audaciously gathers in all the other arts and enraptures the audience.

Performed by three women, the first few segments happen in front of a Romantic landscape with a dove of hope all projected on to a grid-divided screen with two doors and a waste chute. The three actors are clothed in rustling dark all-in-ones and they begin to go out and in the doors carrying a multitude of unconnected objects some of which they pop down the chute, occasionally darting friendly glances to us, inviting us to relax into the performance. From the beginning the light playful atmosphere ensures that we never feel disconnected or alienated from the strangely marvellous things we experience in Hashirigaki.

Then the screen disappears and the rest happens in a large horseshoe shaped area bounded by a cyclorama on which marvellous colours such as cerise pink, acid green and cyan blue are projected. Sometimes abstract whirls and lines are added to the projection which like the colours can also be seen on the women who change into white clothing for the majority of the piece. The lighting by Klaus Grunberg is outstanding, he also designed the effectively sparse yet changing settings, and Willi Bopp's sound design is equally accomplished. In one sequence two Japanese bells are used for their sound and imagery, swinging back and forth across the stage. Later they are transformed into hot air balloons whilst underneath a miniature town is made as the women carry in the buildings. There is no through narrative forced upon the audience but, as we listen to Stein's playing with words, her phrase I don't wish reason is spoken, we give ourselves up to Goebbel's creation.

Yumiko Tanaka, a highly accomplished Japanese musician, plays various of her country's traditional instruments live. At one point she plays a stringed lute-like one behind the cyclorama, lit so we see her outline, the bow transforming into a oar visually so she seemed to be moving on a vast river. Charlotte Engelkes, a very tall woman with long, long auburn hair, is a skilled player of the theramin, a instrument which the Beach Boys used. It has an antenna and you play it by moving your hands in varying ways and distances from this antenna. Her stature and Tanaka's petiteness is emphasised by Marie Goyette who is mid-way in height so that they evoke types of woman and a often comic picture when they line up. They wear several inventive costumes, all designed by Florence von Gerkan, including some bell like skirts which sway entrancingly. Throughout their performance skills, as they move, speak and sing in the mood of piece, contributing even more layers.

There have only been two performances of Hashirigaki at the Edinburgh International Festival which is a shame for I would love to delight in it again and word of mouth had no time to develop locally. It is however touring in future - to North America in 2002 - and is so extraordinary I deem it well worth travelling some distance to experience.
© Thelma Good 26 August 2001