As the original script remain now only included lines, miss the expressionand movement of actors, Ninagawa Yukio, together with the director and actors,created their own way to present it. The stage sets are rather simple comparedwith Kafka on the shore, but showed all the scenes, from a noble’s room to thejail, perfectly. I heard that the play have changed a bit inthe first few performances, but the four times I saw were nearly the same,maybe they finalized it already.
When Isabella said she would bride Angelo for his brother’s life, Angelolooked back and said what? The facial expression and body movement of Angeloshowed a thousand dirty thought. That is epic! It is rare to see Nao acts adirty guy. Many audiences laughed. Although the play was a sad story actually,there were many scenes make people laugh. Pompey was really funny. Every main characterwould walk through the audience to enter the stage in different scenes, Angelojust walked through one time, but I was not lucky enough to sit near the stair.
Angelo had two scene of monologue. The first one was after he fellin love with the pure, intelligent and beautiful Isabella. Rationale conflictedwith desire, Angelo was never wanted a woman so much. Is this her responsibility,or is this my responsibility? Well, I only knew that there were so many female audiences,maybe many of them was tempted by that beautiful Angelo. Then, when he metIsabella next day, he decided to follow his desire, asked her to exchange herbrother’s life with her body. There was a large white chiffon hanging on thestage. Angelo and Isabella walked inside and outside the chiffon through theirconversion. Angelo maybe a bad guy, but when he said “Said it bluntly, I loveyou”, and kneel down to the stage to beg Isabella to trust him, I was really convinced.Nao’s acting made you believed that, Angelo not only wanted Isabella’s body, butin a very wrong way, he really loved her. When Isabella rejected him, that badguy Angelo was the Nao I have never seen before.
The second monologue was after Angelo knew the duke would come backsoon, and afraid that all his evil doings would revealed. He was so regrettedfor what he did, put out his coat and threw it on the stage. The acting was so fascinatingthat I don’t know how to describe in words. He walked away, looked back, andput on the coat again. It was so handsome and attractive that killed fans in asingle hit, even Angelo was a mean guy who fell into desire, loved his powerand breached his promise. |