Most ears raised on English are able to pick up the subtlety of tone in linguistics, but the mouth is not trained too well to recreate the tones of foreign language due to a lazy tongue and flat accent. Japanese uses changes in pitch on syllables within words, which contrasts some Chinese languages which assign a tone to an entire word. Ask a westerner if there was a downstep on that second syllable or if the tone was a contour overall…

Kawasaki Exit has a design to it that helps reveal to the viewer nuances of tone in language, movement, and emotion that at first are not always clear. One Yellow Rabbit’s Kawasaki Exit at the High Performance Rodeo has done its homework and comes out feeling authentic and detailed. You have three more nights to see it. I recommend you do so.

The story of how one family deals with terminal illness plays out in two acts across two languages, and with time running in two directions. In the first act, the entire show is delivered in Japanese accompanied by English subtitles. In the second act English is spoken but the show plays in reverse order. It’s this linguistic and linear trickery that pulls back the covers and reveals something about the internals of the machinery to us.

Moving forward, the viewer’s mind is split between reading the subtitles and viewing/listening to the performers. This divorces us from a unified take on a line, and we approach each line twice. We can read faster than the line is spoken, so the mind has internalized the toneless text for meaning one way. But then our heart processes how the words came out, how the soul’s breath contours sound. There are “A Ha!” moments, when deeper layers of context and history can be felt out through the tone that are not immediately apparent in the text.

Moving backwards, lines that were only steps in progression to a larger point stand out as statements. In the English spoken second act, movement is splayed open. Running the body backwards, breaking our normal visual filters for patterns, changes in tone through body language or posture are highlighted. Movements not noticed before are staccato notes in a quiet car ride.

Denise Clarke and Andy Curtis are studies in tone. Curtis was born to speak Japanese, and his sharp bow summarizes so much unsaid. Clarke dissects her character with heartbreaking precision, and when her cracks show she takes us with her. The ensemble, rounded out with bright eyed Pat MacEachern, is capable and plays warmly with each other. The set and lights are very minimal, the major piece being shades of a car that has not grown much since the sampling of the show back in November.

As it is, it is a show well worth watching, a must see at HPR. But I still wonder if there is tooling that could be done if OYR decides to tour the show or remount it. The second act feels a bit rushed somehow. The English is less pleasing on the ear, so we notice that the pacing is done up. It feels a bit more like a race back to the beginning then an honest timeline. And I wonder if the acts should be reversed… I can’t discuss with you why until you have seen it.

As it stands, the beginning, as the end, is perfect. It’s a moment that when first viewed is just cute, but when touched the second time is frontloaded with the history of it’s future and the tone of it’s passing. It is heartbreaking, profound, and a rich red dusk from the land of the rising sun.

Kawasaki Exit
One Yellow Rabbit performance Theatre
Runs through Saturday, 23 January 2010
Big Secret Theatre
8pm

No, I’m the Japanese Robert Deniro

One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo is just months away. This is a good thing. This means that it’s closer than it was yesterday. The High Performance Rodeo can be the burning highlight of a sun deprived winter for a theatre patron with stamina. Three whole weeks of good times…

The Rodeo also serves as a premiere for new work that the ensemble puts together. And last weekend, OYR gave us a sampling of Kawasaki Exit, a new work written and directed by Blake Brooker.

The sampling is also a genius method of advertising, gathering feedback, and building community. As Brooker puts it, “instead of buying flyers, we buy beers.” And for Kawasaki Exit, they bought Asashi. Brooker let the audience in on tradition that the performers and creators have used to bless the space and the work, handing out shot sized glasses of Saki to “kampai” the four cardinal points, the memory of the performers, what our successes are, and the things holding us all back. He invited us to enjoy the show, and then to hang around after for sushi and a chat with the creative people involved.

Then the performers took to the barely dressed stage to give us a half hour sample of Kawasaki Exit. Although a work in progress, the cast of Andy Curtis, Denise Clark, and Patrick MacEachern put depth into the Japanese text, with Curtis and Clark particularly building a familiar relationship that hints of a darker design. MacEachern will be known as “the Japanese Robert Deniro” for some time to come, and conveys well the hope and brokenness of his situation.

The cast must be commended for their work with the Japanese language. I don’t believe any of them spoke any Japanese before the beginning of the process, but the delivery is nuanced and toned just right to my ear. The words and the delivery really put me in that held place that Japanese language dramas create sonically and visually for me. Silence is golden but heavy. Plosives bite. A raised voice for two words says more than a loud American in an airport. It sounds right. It feels right.

I’m excited. Not just for Kawasaki Exit, but also for The High Performance Rodeo in general. Going there is a bit of a Kampai to my year. Hopefully, Kawasaki Exit will turn out to be just as toastable.

Kawasaki Exit
Presented by One Yellow Rabbit
Plays in the Big Secret Theatre
January 19 through 23, 2010

One Yellow Rabbit
The High Performance Rodeo