For me, Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey was an easy four stars to give.
But this experimental play might not be to everyone’s taste, so if you’re on the fence, let me help you decide whether to part with your cash and grab a seat:
What is it?
An adaptation of Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s short story, in which a man forced to stay at the last decrepit hotel before the mountains begin is tended to by a strange talking monkey with a sad tale of thwarted love.
Meanwhile, women in Tokyo – including Mizuki, who’s unfulfilled in life and marriage, and still haunted by the suicide of a college friend – find they’re forgetting their own names.
Come for:
The involvement of Scotland’s brilliantly experimental Vanishing Point theatre company (whose hits include the acclaimed Love Beyond (Acts of Remembrance) and their version of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis) was enough to draw a full house on opening night.
It’s a co-production with Japan’s Kanagawa Arts Theatre (KAAT), with the premier in Yokohama last year followed up by this limited UK run in Dundee and Glasgow.
The creative powerhouses here are undoubtedly the co-writing and directing team, Vanishing Point’s Matthew Lenton and actor Sandy Grierson.
You may have seen Grierson onscreen in Shetland or Outlander, but he’s most known for his stage work, including playing Ivor Cutler and the lead character in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark.
Grierson’s simply fantastic here as the monkey, combining sadness and menace as he lopes on all fours around the stage, followed by Ailie Cohen as puppeteer of his creepy long tail.
Stay for:
While the meaning of the story is hard to decipher, Lenton programme notes make clear that’s the point, stating Murakami “leaves space between the notes for his readers, allows them to place themselves into the story”.
If you can go with the dark absurdity of it all, then this is a stunning production, a vivid, unsettling dream come to life.
Lenton and his team’s cleverly minimal design makes a feature of moody darkness, as the monkey’s sewer lair is explored with just strobing torchlights visible and then a full Tokyo apartment kitchen appears out of the gloom.
The eight-strong mixed Scots/Japanese cast are all highly watchable – even though Grierson can’t help but leap out – especially Satoru Date as the mystified traveller and Rin Nasu as Mizuki, whose entire identity slips away with her name.
Avoid if:
You don’t like reading subtitles onstage.
Conversations switching between English and Japanese, with written translations on the backdrop, are cleverly executed, but at times they’re rapid.
- Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey is at Dundee Rep Theatre on Friday March 7 and Saturday March 8 2025.
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