Niwa Gekidan Penino’s “Theatre of Images”

Shortlisted for the Kishida Kunio Drama Award two years running, Niwa Gekidan Penino is led by the multi-talented Kuro Tanino, acclaimed for his directing work that deftly shifts between the classical and the “in-yer-face”. For his first entry in Festival/Tokyo Tanino will present a new work with the company that gives full vent to his imagination.

In the “image theatre” of Niwa Gekidan Penino the audience enters a bizarre binary world of fantasies and delusions. “People are relativist and connect things in their heads. That is our freedom, our prerogative,” says Tanino. Through all manner of devices and trickery, the theater space is ingeniously transformed.

When Tanino and the audience’s imaginations become entangled, the mind of the viewer will feel like it has been re-written – and a new ‘unreal reality’ is born on the stage.

The quintessence of Tanino at the Nishi-Sugamo Arts Factory

From performances in his reformed apartment theater Atrium Hakobune to the fifty-metre deep giant tent productions among the Shinjuku skyscrapers, Tanino executes almost all the parts of his productions himself – the direction, set, lighting and sound – and in each one he re-makes ‘theatre’ and what a ‘theater space’ means. Not just the surroundings, Tanino’s work is also known for its groundbreaking departure from convention, from plays employing daily sounds for dialogue to those like “Underground” (2006), which featured a live jazz session simultaneously with a hospital operation scene, mixing comedy and horror to new dizzying levels.
This performance will be no exception, completely altering the usual seating of the Nishi-Sugamo Arts Factory into a figment of Tanino’s mind. This is the opportunity to see what the prodigal director will do with a large gymnasium – but only for those brave enough!