THEATRE REVIEW: ARIGATO, TOKYO


Pictured: David Storch, Michael Dufays

JOHN COULBOURN, Special to TorSun
26 MARCH 2013
R: 5/5

TORONTO - From a part of the world best known of late for cataclysmic collisions between shifting tectonic plates, playwright Daniel MacIvor has mined a stagework that brings together the templates of two cultures, not in a violent grinding confrontation, but in a thoughtful, exquisite fusion instead. 
It’s called ARIGATO, TOKYO and it had its world première at Buddies In Bad Times last week.


Inspired by MacIvor’s own visit to Tokyo, the play — the title of which translates loosely (and with cavalier inaccuracy) as Thank You, Tokyo —  tells the story of Carl, a Canadian writer, played with relish and artfully restrained abandon by David Storch. By his own admission, Carl lives for drugs and sex, but he is about to be transformed by a visit to the city of title. He’s there, it develops, to read from his collected and highly cynical works, which he does  — but there is a deeper reason for his visit too.


It might be to fall into the trap, spun by his beautiful and mysterious Japanese handler, Nushi (played by a note-perfect Cara Gee), who sees in him the embodiment of the hero of an ancient love story, or it might be simply to effect a sexual reunion with the exotic drag geisha, Etta Waki who, in the performance of the remarkable Tyson James, is transformed into the very soul of this pulsating and mysterious city.


Or finally, it might be to understand the subtle differences that hide in the spaces between “no,” “know” and “noh’ — the latter an ancient Japanese theatrical form practised by Nushi’s brother, played by a beautifully centred Michael Dufays — and thereby find his way back home.


Working with one of the more impressive casts assembled on a Toronto stage in some time, director Brendan Healy embraces the utter simplicity at the heart of all great Japanese art. In a memorable conspiracy  with his design team — sets and costumes by Julie Fox, lighting by Kimberly Purtell, sound and music by Richard Feren and choreography by Hiroshi Miyamoto — he creates a production spare in all the right ways, stripped of anything that might detract from the richness of the characters and the story they tell.


And best of all, he finds in MacIvor’s carefully and beautifully drawn script, a perfect balance of the elements of Japanese flavour. To the saltiness of tears, the bitterness of loss, the sourness of excess and finally the sweetness of love, he adds just the right amount of umami — that exquisite but oh-so-hard-to-define theatrical element that exists in all the plays we savour — to finish it off to perfection.
 ARIGATO, TOKYO is a deeply complex work that, in its setting and development, represents a major departure for a playwright known for simpler works like Here Lies Henry and Cul-de-sac, but ultimately, it soars on the same carefully considered construction and artfully under-drawn human compassion that has made MacIvor one of the greats of contemporary Canadian theatre.