YUME NO SHIRO

DAISUKE MIURA

A minuscule apartment in Tokyo. A TV set, mattresses on the floor. Eight young people eat, make love, sleep. Welcome to the dizzying hyperrealism of Daisuke Miura.iura !

Details

As though at the zoo
Spectators observe eight young adults crammed into a tiny apartment in Tokyo. Mattresses on the floor, junk and clutter everywhere, the ridiculous colours of post-adolescent décor. They do not talk, abide each other’s presence with supreme indifference punctuated by the odd exchange of blows to resolve an issue – someone changing the TV channel, say – and engage in sexual intercourse that is as banal as it is impersonal. Attending to only basic, immediate needs (sexual release, eating, sleeping) they express no emotion. And yet a young girl sobs quietly at night, with no indication as to why.

Welcome to the hyperrealism of the “semi-documentary theatre” of Japanese director Daisuke Miura (a rising star on the international scene), featuring a lack of emphatic action, actors who do not aim to captivate the audience and a dizzying emptiness that masks lassitude and worthlessness.

POTUDO-RU / Be & Do, but Don’t Act
Artistic heirs of the shogekijo (small-scale theatre) movement of the 1980s, Potudo-ru provoked a shock wave in Japan in 2000 with Knight Club, where the actors fought for real, frequently appeared naked and engaged in sexual activity onstage. In 2001 Make Loveexacerbated that documentary approach with its reconstitution onstage of a love hotelfeaturing actors mixed in with real couples. These controlled happenings were followed by productions with a very precise physical component, pieces such as Ai no uzu (Love’s Whirlpool, 2005, a turning point in the evolution of the company), which portrayed a sex club with no-strings-attached hook-ups, and Yume no shiro (Castle of Dreams, 2006).

Credits

PRODUCED BY POTUDO-RU

PLAYWRIGHT AND DIRECTORDAISUKE MIURA WITH RUNA ENDO + YUSUKE FURUSAWA + KOTARO INOUE + YOSHIKO MIYAJIMA + MEGUMI NITTA + KENTO OGURA + RYOTARO YONEMURA + HIDEAKI WASHIOLIGHTING DESIGN TAKASHI ITOSOUND DESIGN YOSHIHIRO NAKAMURA SET DESIGN TOSHIE TANAKA MOVIE NORIMICHI TOMITA PROPS MICHIYO OHASHI

PREMIERED IN TOKYO, MARCH 2006

WRITTEN BY PAUL LEFEBVRETRANSLATED BY NEIL KROETSCH

 

DAISUKE MIURA (TOKYO)

Minimum Fiction, Maximum Reality
With his theatre of real interactions where intimacy and existential emptiness are intertwined, Daisuke Miura has established a reputation as a radical and significant figure on the contemporary arts scene.e.

Full biography