- target business
- Niwa Gekidan Penino (Arsch LLC) 'New "Hakobune" Project' (adopted in FY 2014: 3 years)
- Speaker (Reporter)
- Tanino Crowe (Playwright and director of Penino Garden Theater)
Kayo Ishikawa (actor), Susumu Ogata (actor), Yui Matsumoto (assistant director) - guest speaker
- Max-Philippe Aschenbrenner (performing arts presenter)
- moderator
- Akiko Sano Senior Program Officer, Planning and Support Division
Outline of subsidized activities
With the rotating tray stage "Hakobune" as the new symbol of the troupe, this project aims to become an internationally active creative group based on elaborate stage art and a detailed and original world view. The following performances were supported by the grant: A Box in a Big Trunk (2014 Swiss performance), Water cage (2015 Krefeld City Theater, Germany commission), Jigokudani Onsen Mumyo no Yado (First performed in 2015, toured Europe in 2016), and Dark Master (2016 Tokyo performance).
Part 1 Creating a "Place" for Creation and Presentation
The garden theater group Penino was selected for the Tokyo Arts and Culture Creation Promotion Grant Program (long-term grant) from FY 2014 to FY 28, and during that time, its director Tanino Crowe won the Kishida Drama Prize, and they also toured Europe for their award-winning works. In the first part of the debriefing session, the details of how they applied for the long-term grant, their creative style, which is known for its exquisite stage space that can be called hyperrealism, and their recent developments were introduced, with comments from Max Philippe Aschenbrenner, who is a performing arts presenter and a guest speaker who has been close to them through overseas performances.
(Text: Rieko Suzuki)
It was in 2014 that the Penino Garden Theater Company began to be supported by the Tokyo Arts and Culture Creation Promotion Subsidy Program (long-term subsidy). In 2012, he left the theater company's studio, "Hakobune," which he had used for many years, and successfully produced his first revolving stage production, "A Box in a Big Trunk" (2013/Morishita Studio). The title of the activity plan submitted at that time was "New "Hakobune" Project". To establish the stage set 'Hakobune' using a tray as a symbol of Penino and to disseminate it internationally. Creating a new work based on that premise. And to continue production with actors in Osaka, which began in 2013. Based on these three activities, the plan to create and disseminate new works in a field different from the traditional "small theater world" was named after Penino's former atelier because it symbolized his creative stance. A considerable amount of time was devoted to explaining the background of the incident at the meeting.
"Hakobune" is an atelier-cum-theater that was built in 2004 in a renovated apartment of TANINO CLOUR, who is in charge of theater production and direction. From the beginning, the experience of immersing oneself in an exquisitely crafted space in a small room of an ordinary apartment attracted the attention of theatergoers. "It is the same now, but young troupes practice while drifting around the community center, and within two days at the most after entering the theater, they have to adjust everything, including art, lighting, sound, and the distance between actors. Two weeks of sound is not enough. I wanted to get out of it, and I didn't want to get used to it." That's how Tanino explains why they have their own outpost within a few years of forming in 2000.
In fact, Tanino says that during the creation process of the former Hakobune, "everything was under my control." Art and props are made first. After that, lighting and sound are decided, and finally the arrangement of actors is done. Even at that point, there is no script, and it is only after taking pictures of the stage with the actors standing and arranging them that themes and stories are found and put into dialogue. With no restrictions on time or usage, late-night rehearsals are not uncommon in their home studio, which seems to have put a particular strain on the actors. But it's also true that this kind of excessive environment is what brought out Tanino's creativity. His hyperreal and fantastic masterpieces, Irritating Adult's Picture Book (2009) and Your Room That Nobody Knows (2012), were born from this small room.
New 'Hakobune' Project Begins
However, in 2012, the building was demolished due to its deterioration, and Penino was forced to end his activities with the Hakobune. "I was born in Toyama and lived there since I was 15 years old, so it was full of memories of my adolescence. So it was different than just losing my studio. Until then, I was acting like a king, so I didn't even know how to make art." Finally, Tanino consulted the Saison Cultural Foundation. He rented the Morishita studio for three months, but there was no way he could come up with a plan for a new film right away. "Put a hammock in the studio and sleep in it from morning to night. I had to wake up nodding, squeak, shadowbox, take a walk, go back to sleep and so on. At that time, I don't know why I'm suffering. But then I suddenly realized, "Oh, this is because my studio is gone." There was something to pop open. The image of Hakobune slipping out of that apartment and landing at Morishita Studio. In other words, I wanted to make a portable playhouse like Karajuro's red tent."
The result was a revolving stage with 4 scenes, "A Box in a Big Trunk" (2013). This play, which contains the representative works of the former "Hakobune" period in a reduced box, shows the intensity of his delusion and psychoanalytic essence condensed, and at the same time, combined with the change in the tray, it has a boldness that is different from the previous performances in closed spaces. "In this play, the stage art was there from the beginning of the practice. However, there are some things that we didn't intentionally create. Instead of taking liberties with the old "Hakobune," they began to consider the physical characteristics of the actors and how they looked from the audience. In that sense, it's more like a human spirit has been born ...... but it's natural. By having the lighting and sound operators in the rehearsal room all the time, and making everything work in tandem, we were able to create a stage where there were no unconscious elements and everything was meaningful." It was from the autumn of that year in Switzerland that they were selected for a long-term grant from the Arts Council Tokyo and began to receive support (they had received a single year grant from 2012 until their European tour).
Thanks to the long-term grant, the creation using the new "Hakobune" finally began to take on the scale of a "project." "Jigokudani Onsen Mumyo no Yado" premiered in the following year, 2015, using the same revolving stage as the previous work, portraying the desire and desire for life that wells up in a rustic hot-spring resort. Unlike in the past, the script and art were almost completed on the first day of practice, which gave Tanino more time to face the actors and deepen his work's world. "I wanted the actors to put their own marks on the space to bring out the reality of the story. I just want you to live there. Even for art, collecting old furniture and props that were actually used. I thought of filling this work with the feelings that reside in such things." "Not only the art, the sound, the lighting, but also the actors were very meticulous in their criticism." said Kayo Ishikawa, an actor at the Saitama Gold Theater who played Penino for the first time. "Even for lines that are difficult to say, they try to figure out why they don't come out well, and sometimes they rewrite them. I think it was a very careful staging."
In the spring of 2016, Tanino won the Kishida Kunio Drama Prize for "Jigokudani Onsen Mumyo no Yado." In August and September, the third year of the long-term grant, the film went on a European tour, visiting Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and France. Penino's works, which do not focus on verbal dialogue, were likely to be easily accepted overseas. However, Penino's performance activities have been particularly active since around 2012, when the annual subsidy started, and his presence has been so strong that his activities were featured in the German theater magazine Theater der Zeit in February this year. "It's special for a German theatre magazine to have such an article highlighting a foreign artist." says Max-Philippe Aschenbrenner, who has performed in Lucerne, Switzerland, at the Vienna Arts Week, and participated in production at the Kinosaki Art Center with Tanino and Masayuki Nenguchi. "Tanino's work has a vision and an aesthetic. In contemporary theater, where the number of dry and conceptual works is increasing, he insists on reality itself. I feel there's truth and meaning in that."
increase the number of performers and spectators with the simultaneous spread of
Production of new works, international dissemination, and another activity mentioned during the long-term grant period was the revival of his masterpiece The Dark Master, which premiered in 2003, in Osaka and other regions, and its Tokyo performance. Penino's strategy was different from the revolving stage "Hakobune." In contrast to "Hakobune," which moves from stage to stage and expands its range of activities, this is a simultaneous effort to increase the number of performers and audiences through small-scale performances of old works.
This performance, which was planned and realized in cooperation with the small theater Oval Theater in Osaka, was selected as a residency program of Kinosaki International Art Center in Hyogo Prefecture. Both training sessions at Kinosaki and at OVAL THEATER were conducted with a system that allowed him to freely spend a long time, enabling him to brush up on his work. In addition to the cast, there was also a massive “localization ” of the crew, with local talent being recruited. "They are very precise, like shaking a glass to make the sound of ice. New effects and foreshadowing emerge from such specifics. So as an actor, I felt like I was going to throw up (laughs) and I lost five kilograms. But it's rare to see such a sense of accomplishment. I learned a lot, including the importance of being there, not how to act." says veteran actor Susumu Ogata, who worked in Osaka for many years and played the mysterious master of a Western-style restaurant in Penino for the first time. According to Tanino, Darkmaster was originally intended for localization, with entertainment, a sense of accomplishment thanks to its technical sophistication, and the ability to recruit locals as extras. "At the first performance in Osaka, most of the players except Ogata were in their 20s, and they had very little experience. But at the Tokyo performance and the triumphant return performance in Osaka last year, the team itself became able to move independently. I'm glad I didn't touch most of it. The training period was only 2 days. If we create a system in which the people involved move around, it would be possible to create a professional team of "Dark Master" performers not only in Osaka, but also in other places. If we can achieve this with a small number of people, the guarantee would naturally be even and fair."
The "New 'Hakobune' Project," which began by moving out of an apartment building, is steadily expanding Penino's range of activities and audience. "Jigokudani Onsen Mumyo no Yado" was performed many times in Japan and overseas, and "Dark Master" was performed triumphantly in Osaka. Furthermore, in 2017, he started to produce works in M project with artist Kasper Bichner.
The activities of the garden theater troupe Penino, which does not have any actors and creates works based on the overwhelming spatial design of Tanino and his surrounding staff, may seem unusual among small theater plays. However, if we look at it from the perspective of how to create time for rich creative activities, how to hand over our works to society, and how to come up with sustainable forms of activity, we can find many hints. The Penino Garden Theater Company's plan and its path can be said to be a model case of a company that has taken on the challenge of solving the problems faced by many companies while honing its own creative originality.
* Continued in Part II (Part 2: In-Depth Interview)