Lemmings

On the 18th, Harada attended Banyu-inryoku's experimental play "Lemmings."
Banyu-inryoku, headed by J.A. Seazer, is the only experimental theater company still carrying on Terayama's experimental tradition.
https://banyuinryoku.wixsite.com/index
"Lemmings" was Terayama's experimental play that Harada first saw at the age of 19. This work marked a major turning point in his life, his way of living, and his style of writing.
J.A. Seazer co-directs with Terayama, faithfully recreating each performance of Terayama's play from over 40 years ago.
The diagram below shows the time when the audience is entering the theater. The play has already begun. The audience suddenly enters a different space.
The theater was plunged into complete darkness several times, with lit matches and yellow lamps dancing wildly.
There was a final performance that seemed to mark the end of the performance. Just as the audience was about to get up and leave, an actor came out and said, "It's not over yet!" and began explaining the map of Tokyo.
The key to this unexpected scene was that the staff waited patiently for a long time until the audience, confused, got up from their seats.
Harada often pauses his films midway through, but this time their direction was to surprise the audience who were about to applaud to end the show.
The actors then brought the audience members up onto the stage and had them place round stickers on the map where they were located.
When the lights went out at the end, the stickers had become constellations.
The stickers were fluorescent (phosphorescent).
Neither Terayama nor Banyu-inryoku give clear indications when the show is over. They let the audience decide when that is.
Recently, however, regular audience members have developed the habit of clapping at the end.

When one person claps, everyone else follows suit. It's a very Japanese sight. However, Harada preferred the old days when the audience would leave the theater at the end in a confused state, not knowing whether the play was over or not.

At one point, a scene outside was projected onto the screen in section A.

These stage sets are constantly moving along with the play.

This work expresses the disappearance of city walls from a cosmic perspective.
There were some striking scenes at the beginning and middle of the performance, where a large wall separated the stage from the audience, and the actors performed behind this wall, invisible to the audience.
This is the opposite approach to Eisenstein and Terayama's approach to the disappearance of walls (boundaries), but it was effective in making us aware of the existence of "walls."
Both Terayama and Banyu often use techniques known as "invisible theater" or "hidden theater."
In the passage where many actors speak in unison around the audience, the performance was accompanied by a magnificent 3D sound of live voices.
It was like an ancient ritual.
Banyu had struggled amid the COVID-19 pandemic (which is still not under control), but for the first time in a long time, they created a realistic and fantastical space in the cramped space of a small theater.
Note: Seazer did not play the drums this time, perhaps due to his advanced age.

Suzunari