Five mysterious, anonymous figures discuss the passing of our protagonist, the onion skins of imagined identity ritualistically peeled away. An ironic tone stems, on the one hand, from the premise of living entities speaking of what truly may not be known to them, perhaps in a sense the […]
Superb dramaticule far ahead of its time, ‘Long Live the Ignorant!’ is redolent of Sigmund Freud. Jibun’s imagined “I”-character sits writing within the space of his own unconscious. Garbed in black, two mysterious figures observe the content of his script: an enticing representation of Freud’s ‘dreamwork‘. A harsh […]
The true and innate attraction between Ichiro and Shizu is interrupted. Yet at the same time, Ichiro and the woman he married do share a form of happiness—if merely a “conscious” happiness, with a lack and a longing at the centre of it. The anti-naturalistic narrative recedes from objectivity, […]
Not unlike a Brechtian ‘alienation‘ or ‘estrangement effect’, Mushanokoji’s ‘supplementary record’ creates a distance from the naturalism of the original story. These addenda are intended to be read as though written by Jibun, the character in the story, not the author as such. Thus they are located at […]
Furin Chime 