BEGIN:VCALENDAR METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:-//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:Yukio Ninagawa's Shintoku-Maru featuring Tatsuya Fujiwara in Washington DC at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - Eventful BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART:20080207T000000 DTEND:20080209T000000 DTSTAMP:20080223T205311Z SUMMARY:Yukio Ninagawa's Shintoku-Maru featuring Tatsuya Fujiwara DESCRIPTION: CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO CLIPS!RealPlayer is required. D ownload now"A dreamlike journey through a numinous underworld"--The In dependentU.S. PREMIERE!Yukio Ninagawa's Shintoku-Maru featuring Tatsuy a FujiwaraRenowned for his innovative interpretations of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night\, King Lear\, and other classics\, award-winning direct or Yukio Ninagawa has been called "one of the great image-makers of mo dern theater" (London's The Guardian).For the festival\, Ninagawa brin gs his tragic fable of love\, lust\, and revenge based on an ancient J apanese noh play written by Shuji Terayama and adapted by Rio Kishida. Blending drama\, music\, and spectacle\, the production stars Tatsuya Fujiwara\, one of Japan's hottest young actors known for movie roles ranging from Death Note to Battle Royale. Reprising his acclaimed\, st ar-making performance from the London staging of Shintoku-Maru\, Fujiw ara portrays a young man haunted by the memory of his departed mother and strangely drawn to his new stepmother\, portrayed by the magnetic Kayoko Shiraishi.Performed in Japanese. English synopsis in the progra m and in pre-recorded narration by Alan Rickman before the performance . No intermission.PLEASE NOTE: This performance contains nudity.~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shintoku-MaruSYNOPSIS(the fol lowing note will also be included in the programs)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In a crowded thoroughfare\, Shintoku-Maru s earches for memories of his late mother\, whose picture he carries in his pocket. His father\, bereft without a wife\, decides to purchase a new mother for his family.From a group of travelling players who have fallen on hard times\, he chooses Nadeshiko. Shintoku is immediately attracted to her. With her own son\, Sensaku\, they all make a home to gether. However\, Shintoku rejects his step-mother and the aging fathe r refuses to treat her as his wife. Nadeshiko realizes she has been ma rried only to provide domestic stability.The family play a game of car ds\, in which he who collects a complete family (father\, mother and c hildren) is the winner. Thinking he is being deliberately ignored\, Sh intoku surrepititiously withholds the ‘mother' cards and leaves with them.Nadeshiko goes to look for him and finds him playing with a long -horned beetle (in Japanese superstition\, long-horn beetles were supp osed to cut off women's hair). When she tries to comfort him in a moth erly way\, he rejects her and the pent-up anger between them explodes. Shintoku meets a mask seller\, who tells him that although he does not have a mask of his mother\, he will lend him some magic: a black hole through which he can travel anywhere.Shintoku travels to the underwor ld in search of his mother. There he finds many mothers looking for th eir children. Ships come and go with cargos of the dead\, and the moth ers grieve for the untimely deaths of their children. Shintoku longs t o see his mother again\, who\, he reveals\, died saving him from their burning home when he was a small boy. Suddenly his step-mother Nadesh iko appears and this seeming heaven turns into hell. Shintoku summons his long-horned beetle and the nightmare ends.Two years pass. Nadeshik o is cleaning the house. She polishes the picture of Shintoku's mother with such vigor that the image vanishes. This enrages Shintoku\, and in a fury he hits his step-mother. In an attempt to maintain the stabi lity of the family\, Shintoku's father orders him to obey\, but he ref uses.Nadeshiko reappears with an effigy of Shintoku\, on which she beg ins to place a curse because of his dislike for her--he will not even look at her. In the darkness\, Shintoku mistakes her for his real moth er and embraces her\, telling her of his hatred for his step-mother. H e realizes too late that it is Nadeshiko in his arms. In despair\, Nad eshiko concludes her curse and Shintoku is blinded.Over the next year Nadeshiko starts to lose her mind. Shintoku returns\, disguised as Nad eshiko\, and savagely assaults his step-brother. In a nightmarish sequ ence\, the family home is symbolically destroyed and the father's heal th is broken. The strolling players return: their song is of the fathe r and all he represented. (The players are wearing masks depicting sea ls which to the Japanese signify their rights as householders).Nadeshi ko finds Shintoku playing the family card game alone\, wearing her kim ono. They finally acknowledge their love for each other and he pleads with her to consummate this love\, so that she may give birth to him\, and hence become his real mother.Together they disappear into the cro wd\, their destination unknown. JAPAN! culture + hyperculture is prese nted with the generous support of Presenting Underwriter the HRH Found ation and Presenting Sponsor Morgan Stanley. ANA is the Official Airl ine of JAPAN! culture + hyperculture. Additional support is provided by The Festival Honorary Committee\, Aruze Corp.\, Amway Corporation\, and Toyota. International Programming is supported through the gener osity of the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts. LOCATION:John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts @ 2700 F Stree t NW, Washington, District of Columbia 20566 United States SEQUENCE:1203799991 UID:E0-001-004285061-7 URL:http://eventful.com/E0-001-004285061-7 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR