Freud Playhouse Ping Chong’s puppet show
"Kwaidan" gives audiences a ghost story unlike any they have seen.
The production depicts three Japanese folk tales.
By Michael Rosen-Molina
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Forget rickety haunted houses, cluttered with baroque coffins
and haunted by melodramatic chain-clanking spirits. Ping
Chong’s puppet show “Kwaidan” offers audiences a
very different sort of ghost story.
Chong’s first foray into the oft-neglected world of puppet
theater brings to life three traditional ghost stories of Japan.
Understated and eerily beautiful, “Kwaidan” relies on
mood ““ with wispy half-seen images and stunning puppetry
““ to achieve its aim, not to frighten, but to awe.
“Kwaidan” premieres at the Freud Playhouse,
Thursday, Nov. 30 at 8 p.m.
The ghostly tales of “Kwaidan” come from a
collection of traditional Japanese stories by the same name,
compiled by Lafcadio Hearn. Chong compared “Kwaidan,”
enjoyed by generations of Japanese children, to well-known Western
fairy tales.
“”˜Kwaidan’ is as popular in Japan as
“˜Snow White’ might be here in America,” he said
in a recent interview.
These subdued stories of ordinary mortals who cross paths with
the ethereal spirit world have long fascinated Chong.
“I’ve wanted to do something on
“˜Kwaidan’ for the last 20 years,” he said.
The recipient of six National Endowment for the Arts
fellowships, among other awards, and a major figure in the Asian
American Arts Movement, Chong has worked with parts of
“Kwaidan” before. He staged “Uki Onna” (The
Woman of the Snow), another story from the collection, in
“Snow,” a show produced by the Illusion Theater in
Minneapolis in 1988.
“When I was invited by the Center for Puppetry Arts to do
a full-length, adult puppet show, “˜Kwaidan’ seemed the
obvious choice,” said Chong.
Chong explained his simple criteria for choosing which stories
to include in the show.
“This is totally about personal appeal,” he said.
“I liked them, found them striking. I thought that I could do
something with them.”
“Kwaidan” is notable not just for its uncanny
ambiance but also for its technical brilliance. With a background
in film, Chong brings numerous perspective tricks to the show. An
audience viewing a motion picture might expect such trickery, but
to see it in a live production is far less usual.
For example, one scene appears as an aerial shot, allowing the
audience to look down upon the events of the show from up high.
“It’s really not complicated,” said Chong of
the effect. “At several points during the show, the
perspective is tilted so that it appears that the audience is
looking down upon the action.”
“The puppets are set up at an angle that gives you a
bird’s-eye view of the proceedings,” he continued.
“You can’t do this with actors, but it’s possible
to do this with puppets because you can anchor them so that you can
see them from above.”
Instead of turning “Kwaidan” into a garish Hollywood
production, the use of film conventions adds to the mysterious mood
of the piece. As the first segment, entitled
“Jikininki” opens, a tiny, distant figure makes his way
through a cluster of mountains. This is Muso, a wandering priest,
searching for shelter from the falling night. As he approaches,
different, larger puppets replace the original tiny figurine,
creating the illusion that Muso is literally walking out toward the
audience.
“Since this was my first time working with puppets, it was
a learning experience,” said Chong. “The puppets depend
on each other. Cooperation is more crucial than with live actors
because sometimes there are more than one person operating each
puppet.”
In addition to Chong’s deft puppetry, the eerie storylines
also elevate “Kwaidan” above the stereotypical
“Punch and Judy” idea of puppet shows.
“Kwaidan” consists of three separate stories. The
first segment, “Jikininki,” tells the story of a lone
priest battling the unseen horrors of the night. When some kindly
strangers give Muso lodging for the night, he learns that the
master of the house recently passed away. Being a dutiful priest,
he offers to guard the body overnight, when restless spirits and
wicked demons might try to defile the corpse.
In “Miminashi-Hoichi,” a clan of ghostly music
connoisseurs kidnaps a blind musician to perform in their court.
Alone among the shadowy figures that watch him from behind screens,
the musician Hoichi, played by David Ige, is the only human to
appear on stage during “Kwaidan.”
“I wanted a way for people to be able to tell the humans
and ghosts apart,” said Chong of his decision to include a
live performer in this segment.
Like the first two stories, “The Story of O-Tei”
interlaces the mundane world of human events with the mysterious,
ghostly hereafter. Death steals Young Chosei’s teenage lover
O-Tei, but, before shuffling off this mortal coil, O-Tei vows to
return someday, reincarnated in a different form.
Time passes, and the simple beauty of the traditional Japanese
countryside falls away to reveal the gleaming metropolis of modern
day Tokyo. Chosei is now an old man, but, when he wanders into a
local McDonalds, it becomes apparent that O-Tei has not forgotten
her promise.
Chong refused to reveal whether the inclusion of the Golden
Arches might be meant as social commentary on the influence of U.S.
culture on Japanese society.
“I’ll let the audience figure that out for
itself,” he said.
Despite the predominance of Japanese motifs, Chong emphasized
the universal nature of the performance.
“You don’t have to be familiar with Japanese legends
to enjoy “˜Kwaidan,'” Chong said. “It
transcends any one country. In the restless world we live in, these
simple and pure tales serve as a respite and a reminder of what we
have sacrificed in a world of commodification at the end of the
20th century. “˜Kwaidan’s’ themes are
universal.”
THEATER: “Kwaidan” premieres at the
Freud Playhouse, Thursday, Nov. 30 at 8 p.m. For ticketing
information, contact the Central Ticket Office at (310)
825-2101.