Hanafuda Denki
-A Tale of Fantastic Traditional Playing Cards-
2012 Oversea Reviews
FRINGE 2012 : Hanafuda Denki (A Tale of Fantastic Traditional Playing Cards)
14 Aug 2012
by Keira Farrell
No one does visual spectacular quite like the Japanese, and the opening number of this show is dazzling. The performances and costumes are equally outlandish and exciting. Expect gender bending, great tunes and gallows humour. “What kind of death would sir like?” Danjuro asks his clients with a grin as the other zombies crowd around, desperate for a piece of the action. It’s all swept away in the triumphant, creepy finale. A piece which will make the audience laugh, sing along and then leave thinking – what more could anyone ask?
5/5★★★★★
Hanafuda Denki (A Tale of Fantastic Traditional Playing Cards)
15 Aug 2012
by Rachel Merrill Moss
BOTTOM LINE: Delightfully overwhelming from start to finish, this spectacle-driven production is an hour and change well spent.
The tendency of daughters to cavort with men who personify the opposite of what parents identify as winning qualities is timeless, culturally borderless, and seemingly inspires endless fodder for stimulating drama. Another installment of the story, this time a high-intensity Japanese adaptation of Threepenny Opera, fills the 2nd floor theatre of C Chambers to the rafters with color, cabaret-type crooning, and, of course, parental disapproval galore. Charming and bizarre (in the best way), Hanafuda Denki, plays now through August 18.
Danjuro lives a happy life as a famous funeral director in downtown Tokyo, specializing in offering the most comprehensive death menu around for those customers who haven’t yet figured out the best way to die in time for their own funerals. Being dead himself, Danjuro makes a fine death salesman. His daughter, Karuta, however, is less than smitten with the dead, and goes and gets herself involved with a living man (the horror!). Danjuro, along with his wife and band of dead buddies, must figure out a way to get Karuta to marry a handsome deceased man instead. Much conniving, singing, and dancing ensues.
Fantastically dedicated and beautifully decorated actors stream in and out of the action in this terrifically staged piece, pumping the intimate performance space full with nearly more energy than it can handle. Spooky and aesthetically delicious, Hanafuda Denki is an entirely enjoyable piece of entertainment.
MORNING★STAR
Edinburgh Fringe 2012 round-up
Wednesday 15 August 2012by Gordon Parsons
Hanafuda Denki from Tokyo's Ryuzanji Company (C Venues) is publicised as a Japanese version of Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera. The message here, however, in this "nihilistic musical," is more philosophical than political.
But this is no grand opera tragedy. This dynamic cast in traditional costume handle an infectious score and swinging dance routines with enormous enthusiasm belying the questioning theme - isn't death better than life?
At least there is stability. The audience is helped through the confusing goings-on in this visually delightful show by clear super titles.
It is good to see Brecht back in town.
Edinburgh Fringe Review: Hanafuda Denki (A Tale of Fantastic Traditional Playing Cards)
15 August 2012
Written by Charlie Ely
In the world of Hanafuda Denki the dead seem to show just as much life as the living. Not only do they run funeral parlours and help people on their journey to the underworld but they sing and dance too, with morbid and energetic glee. They are born entertainers and we are all apparently born dead. If this is sounding surreal already, it is only a dash of the madness to come. Perhaps the fact that Hanafuda Denki is the renowned Japanese, avant-garde writer Shuji Tereyama’s 1967 update of Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 Threepenny Opera, which in turn was an update of John Gay’s 1728 The Beggar’s Opera, goes someway to explain this bizarreness.
In truth, there are few similarities between this play and Brecht’s work, beyond the fact that they are both satirical musicals dealing with the underclass in Capitalist society, morality and death. Hanafuda Denki moves away from the Brechtian emphasis on politics; it is more of a nihilist critique of society than a socialist one. One pivotal plot line is nicked from the original: that of a daughter falling in love with and marrying a man whom her parents not only disapprove of, but who is also an infamous criminal. The parents of Brecht’s Polly Peachum control the business of the city’s beggars and prostitutes, here they run a funeral parlour and are, in fact, dead. So is their daughter, maybe… its quite confusing. But don’t let that put you off – the exceptional ensemble cast are so entertaining that it doesn’t really matter whether you follow the plot completely.
The daughter’s love is still living and it is this that mostly attracts her parents’ ire; their view is that death is far superior to life. Hence, we see the father and his creepy, crazy staff trying to convince customers to die, often in song and dance format. In one delightfully impish number, a customer is invited to choose his kind of death from a long list including such kinds as “song death” and “erotic death”. The customer keeps shouting “money!” – he wants something even more spectacular for his dosh; the frustrated funeral director eventually grabs the wad of notes and chokes the customer with them, ironically suggesting that we get what we want in death.
The musical numbers swirl between Japanese classical music and modern pop songs, 1920’s American show tunes and Weimar Republic cabaret, all with lashings of satire and kooky choreography. As the show goes on the music does get a little loud and relentless. We are reminded somewhat of cringey karaoke whenever the microphone is used, though this is clearly director Saori Aoki’s intention. It also heightens the Brechtian alienation effect – which allows us to step back from empathy and critically reflect, in this case, on the ridiculous nature of humanity’s lust for life and death.
The use of gesture is so exquisitely clear that it seems hardly to matter that the performance is in Japanese (there are English surtitles). Some symbolism is lost in translation though; at one point, two characters reveal brightly coloured paintings on their backs (I believe it is a reference to classic Japanese playing-cards) and discuss their meanings – this went completely over my head. The show also does lose its way about halfway through and both the action and the message become a lot less clear. However, the costumes and makeup are sensational, a colourful clash of East and West, contributing significantly to this project of making nihilism fun. Ryuzanji Company have performed all over the world but this is their UK debut. I would very much like to see them return.
**** 4 stars
Hanafuda Denki - A Tale of Playing Cards
Are you a winner or a loser in this life-and-death game?
August 22, 2012
reviewed by Chris Harcum
As an American, it is an unspoken given that there are certain things you should never contemplate, such as what exactly comprises artificial sweeteners, how many hours you spend in front of your TV, the size of the holes in the ozone layer, and your own death. Our society is becoming increasingly designed to distract us from thinking about these pesky things. Fortunately for us, the Ryuzanji Company has come to our shores from Tokyo with Shuji Terayama's Hanafuda Denki, a lively musical comedy about a family running a funeral parlor called the "House of the Dead." This family also happens to not be alive.
Hanafuda is a Japanese game played with cards that are decorated with flowers or animals. Denki means "romance." And in this play, many turns of fortune happen when the daughter of the owners of the funeral parlor does the unspeakable and falls in love with a young man who happens to be living. This story is told in a style that mixes elements of Eastern and Western entertainment. This play was written in 1967, but is set in the Taisho Period, which was from 1912 to 1926. The structure gives ample nods to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera. Frequently, the characters, and often the entire company, break out into contemporary-sounding pop songs, with performers taking turns at a microphone. They pull in a bit of the Takarazuka tradition of having a woman, the excellent Hiroko Ito, play the romantic male leading role. If I were to sum up the overall style it would be camp, possibly best exemplified by the funeral parlor's wife being played by a man, the equally enjoyable IWAO, sporting an actual beard.
I found it interesting that the characters would often say they were in hell, though they were basically in the same funeral parlor in downtown Tokyo that the living people would frequent. The dead were not so much on another plane or an alternate reality, but having to play by a different set of rules. While Brecht and Weill's play asks whether it's the robber of the bank or the creator of the bank who is the bigger thief, Hanafuda Denki begs the question of whether the dead are more alive than the living.
At times, I found this a little difficult to follow. 98% of the piece is spoken in Japanese. There are titles is English above the back wall. Claire Tanaka did a great job of writing a simple and clear translation that earned many laughs. Though the titles were timed with care and precision, I missed some of the story conveyed in the gestures or by what is written on the performer's expressive faces when looking up to read the content of their lines. But even during the few occasions when I was lost, I just had a darn good time.
I admire how solid and energetic the Ryuzanji Company's production is. Just three days after completing a week of performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, they drop in at FringeNYC for a week before going to the Victoria and Vancouver Festivals. To their credit, they didn't bring over an easy show to do. There are a dozen performers wearing elaborate makeup and amazing costumes by an uncredited designer. Daiko Ishimaru's choreography and Saori Aoki's direction require a lot of precision and cohesion from the ensemble. Plus, Makoto Honda's music, ROMI and Etsuo Yamagami's lighting design and Nanaho Unebe and So Suwa's sound design match the frequency and intensity of the stage movement. This show is a feast for the eyes and ears. And the entire company of actors does an admirable job of pulling off the mash-up of styles in this. They are all top-notch and so great to watch.
At the end of the evening, two of the members of the company stood in the lobby and bowed to each of the exiting patrons and sincerely said, "arigato." If this is hell, sign me up. Heck, I'll even become fluent in Japanese.
Hanafuda Denki: A Tale of Playing Cards
Thu Aug 23 2012
By Derek Smith
You might ponder the point at first, but stick with the show: A piercing revelation at the climax will haunt you on your way out.
**** 4 stars
New York Fringe Festival Report: ‘Hanafuda Denki’
August 23, 2012,By RACHEL SALTZ
A riff on death and the sad game of living, “Hanafuda Denki (A Tale of Fantastic Traditional Playing Cards)” begins with a bang and a statement (delivered in English) that quickly proves true: “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s show time!” Cue the kick line and the first big brassy number, “House of the Dead.”
That’s also the name of the funeral parlor in Tokyo where the action takes place. And here’s the twist: it’s run by a family of very lively dead people. Even their cat is dead, we’re told. And so, for good measure, is their goldfish. Trouble arrives when the daughter of the house – “I hate the dead,” she proclaims － falls for a living boy, Kitaro of the Graveyard, and the two worlds, dead and alive, start mixing it up.
The brainchild of Shuji Terayama, a Japanese playwright, filmmaker and all-around artistic provocateur (he died in 1983), “Hanafuda” claims a debt to Brecht and Weill’s “Threepenny Opera.” That influence comes not in story but in style: the mordant humor, the catchy, poppy songs (by Makoto Honda) and the tweaking of social orthodoxies. “He was nice,” says Danjuro, the head of the House of the Dead, about a funeral client. “What a shame he didn’t die sooner.” (For a fee, Danjuro will supply the death as well as the funeral.) Not that being dead is all fun and games － a person is liable to miss the essentials of living: the racetrack, porn, brothels, prison.
Performed with full-tilt commitment and unusual discipline by the Ryuzanji Company, the show, directed by Saori Aoki with little flourishes of the grotesque, has rowdy, propulsive energy that almost never flags. It could use a few more moments of calm and a few less of high-voltage shouting, though a couple of songs manage a quiet melancholy, including one delivered by a dead boy killed by a train under a mackerel sky.
And about that train … watch out. Do you hear the whistle blowing? The dead want company, so you may want to sneak out before the end. Because it may be the End.
Backstage★
Off-Off-Broadway Review :Hanafuda Denki : A Tale of Fantastic Traditional Playing Cards
Aug. 23, 2012,
By Nicole Villeneuve
Japanese avant-garde playwright Shuji Terayama premiered this loose adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” in 1967, transporting it to a funeral parlor inTokyoduring World War I. The result is a madcap mixture of Japanese ghost stories andWeimarcabaret; musical styles run the gamut from J-pop to jazz, all delivered with the same devil-may-care enthusiasm. With spectacularly outfitted cast members constantly swirling about the stage, director Saori Aoki creates a pleasingly controlled chaos. The players perform a seemingly impossible balancing act, remaining completely committed while winking at the audience, bringing them in on the fun.
BEST NEW YORK COMEDY
NYC Top Comedy Choices for FridayAugust 24, 2012
By Hy Bender
A spectacular dark fantasy comedy that’s a bit like anime on stage; colorful, dream-like, overwhelming, and like nothing else you’re likely to see this year. It’s from an all-Japanese troupe (with easy-to-read English subtitles projected on the wall); and kudos to FringeNYC for bringing this amazing show to New York. Don’t miss your three remaining chances to see it tonight at 7:00, tomorrow at noon, and Sunday at 2:00 at the HERE Theatre Mainstage (145 Sixth Avenue; take the C/E subway to Spring Street): Hanafuda Denki: A Tale of Playing Cards－Are You a Winner or a Loser in This Life-and-Death Game?
FringeNYC Show Reviews
Rating: ****4/4
August 24, 2012
By Hy Bender
Hanafuda Denki is spectacular. Forget Fringe; this Japanese production is one of most colorful, cunning, and hilarious epics about life & death you'll see anywhere.
Fifteen minutes before it begins, there's a pre-show in which characters walk around like homeless people from another dimension, wearing costumes that appear as if they were slapped together with old newspapers and spit. It reminds me of the old Mad Magazine, which in its heyday had a circulation that exceeded Time and Newsweek, but in contrast to its glossy-paged competition was printed on cheap newsprint. This was a brilliant choice by publisher William M. Gaines, because it allowed kids and rebels to feel Mad was a rag that took on no airs, wouldn't hesitate to poke fun at itself, and would speak directly to them with the truth. Considering how formal Japanese society can be, the costumes carefully designed to seem cheap are an auspicious start.
Soon after, an unsettling woman dressed in black sits down next to various audience members and asks if they like funerals. Most say no. Their minds will soon change; but more to the point, the barrier between performers and story and safe observers is ruptured from the get-go.
After this oddball understated opening, the show opens with a burst of energy—and then continues to blaze with wild colors, extreme characters, absurd storylines, and insane song & dance numbers in a relentless assault on senses and complacency.
For example, one of the early tales is about a man who has a coffin custom-built for him. It fits so perfectly that he's informed he must not gain or lose any weight—i.e., the rest of his life should be devoted to laying neatly in this beautiful box. The metaphor for a world that has rigid protocols to follow from birth to death is a resonant one. So is the incredible musical sequence that follows in which the man decides it's better to give up the ghost right away before change ruins things, and is gleefully bombarded by the chorus with the dozens of different ways he can die (including "water death, hair death, and song death").
This is a show in which women play men, men play women, and the border between life and death is fluid. The artful theme, delivered in a variety of wonderfully nuanced and hilarious ways, is that we're never stuck. No matter what circumstances we're handed, we can choose to alter them—and end up a winner.
The message is reinforced by the charming contrast between the playful and seemingly relaxed surface, and the immensely thoughtful care and work poured into every detail of this perfectly executed production, ranging from costumes to music to choreography to the concise and easy-to-read subtitles projected on the wall.
While it's loosely based on Threepenny Opera, this is a show that's unique—not just for the US, but (I'm told by someone knowledgeable) for Japan as well. Extra special thanks and blessings to Elena Holy and the Fringe for allowing New York to experience this extraordinary production, which came to us straight from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival—and right after ifs five performances rushed off to Canada for additional fringe fests as part of a world tour.
I hope Hanafuda Denki makes it way back here for an extended commercial run. It has a fierce life and energy that rivals anything on NYC stages.
NY Overall Excellence Award for Design at the FringeNYC
VICTORIA FRINGE FESTIVAL 2012 – REVIEWS
Hanafuda Denki
30Aug12
By John Threlfall
Holy crap, what the hell is this show? It’s a slam-bang 75 minutes of surreal Japanese goth pop, that’s what it is. Imagine Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride by way of Tom Waits’ The Black Rider with a bit of The Rocky Horror Show mixed in, plus a few musical numbers that seem straight out of Quentin Tarantino’s last kabuki acid trip and you’ve got a bit of an idea what lies in wait for you with this wacko treat from Tokyo’s Ryuzanji Company.
With a cast of 12 acting out a mythic tale about a living dead funeral director, his dead clients and servants and the shame his only living daughter is bringing on his house by falling in love with a living boy—a dashing thief named Kitaro of the Graveyard (even though he’s alive)—all based on a traditional Japanese card game (Hanafuda Denki), the most surprising thing about this powerhouse production isn’t that it’s all in Japanese, but that it was originally written back in 1967. The projected surtitles translate the dialogue and songs, but that still doesn’t really help the story make that much sense—but who cares? Just go with it, and let yourself get swept away by the zest and gusto of this cleverly costumed cast.
I have no idea how popular this production is in Japan, but it has everything it needs to be big in Canada. If you’re looking for the obligatory wild and zany Fringe show, you’ve found it.
This house of the dead is very much alive and totally rocking out. I even walked home singing the final song . . . in Japanese, no less. Hanafuda Denki got a big standing ovation on its opening performance, and it absolutely deserved it. Crazy, baby, just crazy.
Pick of the Fringe award at the Victoria's Fringe
Victoria Critics Choice Awards 2012
Vancouver Fringe Festival 2012 – Suggestions from the Victoria Fringe
Hanafuda Denki
– A Tale of Playing Cards – Ryuzanji Company
September 5, 2012
by Janis LacouveeRyuzanji Company from Japan last appeared at the Victoria Fringe in 2009 with a Japanese version (surtitled in English) of High Life. They were a huge hit with their madcap antics of junkies trying to rob a bank, despite the language differences.
Hanafuda Denki was written and first staged in 1967 by avant-garde pioneer Shuji Terayama and Ryuzanji have adapted it for a modern audience.
Are you a winner or loser in this life-and-death game? Don’t miss this very Japanese retelling of a work inspired by“Three Penny Opera” – all the way fromTokyo.
From the moment the company appeared on stage I felt as if I should be applauding. A highlight of this year’s Fringe for me. I only wished I had the time to see it more than once.
Hanafuda Denki: A Tale of Playing Cards
- It's Cirque Surreal
September 8th, 2012
By Danielle Benzon
September 10, 2012
By Maegan Thomas
Thus far, Hanafuda Denki blew my mind on the levels of creativity,
theatricality, humour, talent and pure delight. Way too much to process in one sitting, but in a good way. They have toured this show through Fringe Fests around the world, bringing both classic Japanese and Western theatrical elements together in fun and surprising ways. And don’t worry, if you don’t speak Japanese, there are subtitles.
CALIFORNIA LITERALY REVIEW
September 5th, 2012
by Ethan Kanfer
Like its eponymous playing cards, this opulent production (winner of a Fringe 2012 Overall Excellence Award for design) offers a banquet of colorful imagery to accompany its phantasmagorical story. Presiding over a Tokyo funeral parlor, deceased Danjuro (Kazuhiko Satomi), treats death like a game show. Instead of prizes, moribund contestants gamble to win the demise that best suits them. Of course, Danjuro wins every time: his ghostly village grows with each new arrival. But he’s not so skillful at controlling his rebellious daughter Karuta (Kanami Sakai) who has fallen in love – gasp! – with a living boy. This is a big taboo in netherworld culture. And to make matters worse, Karuta’s boyfriend Kitaro (cross-dressed Hiroko Ito), is known on the streets as a master thief. Danjuro and his wife (cross-dressed and heavily bearded IWAO) try to marry Karuta off to an eligible dead guy. Undaunted, Kitaro plots to penetrate the world of the dead, sabotage the wedding and steal Karuta’s heart. Has the wily Danjuro finally met his match? Let the games begin! Having toured since 2011, this engagingly ghoulish musical is among the most polished of the year’s entries. Whether Ryuzanji Company will enjoy an extended stay in the West is not yet known, but residents of British Columbia will have a chance to see Hanafuda Denki at the upcoming Vancouver and Victoria Fringe Festivals.
Vancouver Fringe Festival: Capsule reviews
September 14, 2012
By Erika thorkelson
Hanafuda Denki
With only three dates at the Vancouver Fringe, this absurd, raucous, surprisingly hilarious musical meditation on death has sadly ended its run. But Tokyo’s Ryuzanji Company has definitely left behind a mark and hopefully they’ll return to Vancouver in coming years.