Tadashi Suzuki- King Lear

First thing's first. I need to start by saying I CANNOT BELIEVE WE WERE ABLE TO MEET TADASHI SUZUKI!!

Now to talk about the performance.

I took notes during the performance of things I noticed so I'm going to talk about each thing as I read through those notes.

The biggest thing I noticed I noticed about the production is that there was very movement. The play had a lot of stillness in it. When there was movement, it was very choreographed and quick(such as the exits). The timing between movements and scene transitions, EVERYTHING, was so incredibly precise. I also noticed that sometimes when character's weren't technically in the scene, they would be in the back of the stage with their backs facing the audience. This was very interesting to me. I was confused as to why they did this, but it certainly made me appreciate the pure discipline the performers have and the amount of training they must have received in order to be mentally and physically able to stay still for such a long time.

The play was both in Korean and Japanese. This was so incredibly interesting to watch. I found it hard to understand the Korean let along try to understand what was being said in Japanese but it was interesting to see how the actors managed the interactions between the character when constantly switching from language to language. In my opinion, the acting was very much focused on the voice and the language. Most of the time, the actors were facing directly to the audience when they spoke even if they would be speaking to other people on stage. Their voices were also very sharp and powerful (even the women). All this gave a sense of formality to the performance. The movements of the actors reminded me very much of the movement of the Japanese Bunraku puppets that I researched last year. They had a sense of robotiness whilst also maintaining the fluidity of human movement.

There were a few things that I noticed and symbolic but didn't quite understand. The father (King Lear?) was on stage for most of the time upstage centre in his wheelchair. He was alway still and was sometimes accompanied by a nurse who has been reading and would give a laugh from time to time during scenes. There must've some sort of significance of the nurse and the book that she was reading as the play ended with the image of the nurse being the only one on the stage, reading and gives of a cry.