Theatre Review - Spirited Away
Kanna Hashimoto in Spirited Away [Johan Persson]
JOHN Caird and Maoko Imai’s stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature film is certainly spectacular.
Spirited Away is stuffed full of magical characters and monsters lovingly brought to life by Toby Olié’s sensational puppets, their agile operators, and Sachiko Nakahara’s lush costumes. It’s presented in Japanese with English captions, and features a live orchestra playing Joe Hisaishi’s film score.
While travelling to their new home, Chihiro (Kanna Hashimoto at the press performance I attended) and her family stumble into a deserted amusement park inhabited by spirits.
When her parents (Fu Hinami and Kenya Osumi), punished for eating a sacred buffet, are turned into pigs, Chihiro has to fend for herself with the help of Haku (Kotaro Daigo), an enigmatic apprentice who later transforms into a dragon.
This strange new world is presided over by the sorceress Yubaba (Romi Park) bearing an uncanny resemblance to Spitting Image’s puppet of Margaret Thatcher. There’s also a Kermit-like frog with attitude and a faceless spirit, Kaonashi (Hikaru Yamano), who starts devouring the bathhouse employees and balloons in size.
Haku tells Chihiro that she has to survive whatever is thrown at her in order to free her parents, and return home. She passes several tests before she is put to work in Yubaba’s bathhouse.
It’s an imaginative coming-of-age tale and visually stunning. Jon Bausor’s revolving set and Shigehiro Ide’s exhilarating choreography are impressive.
The story takes time to get going and the plot’s complexity is occasionally hard to follow. Running at 3 hours, the show feels overlong – not helped by having to read English surtitles. But there’s much to admire and the ending is genuinely moving.
Until August 24