Joe Hisaishi and Royal Shakespeare Company are presenting Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican Theatre.
The moment the RSC announced they were going to stage Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 feature animation, all records at the Barbican’s box office were broken.
Far removed from Walt Disney, the movie, peculiar to Japan’s culture and lore, was a global success with children and adults. Beautiful and sad, extremely slow-moving and gentle, the film spoke to the child in all of us.
The film lasts 87 minutes. The stage version lasts 2 hours 45 minutes, including interval. The music is by Hisaishi.
Phelim McDermott’s magical, fantastic production treats the film with love and respect and audiences are going to be amazed by the expert puppetry and technical brilliance.
My Neighbour Totoro is about family and imagination. There is very little plot. A father and his two daughters, aged 10 and 4, move to the country. Mother, sick, remains in town, hospitalised. The children commune with spirits in the forest, notably Totoro and a Cat Bus.
Totoro, the King of the Jungle, with his beige fluffy tummy (made of cloth and wool) is a mixture of a giant owl and rabbit; and I mean GIANT. Essentially kind, friendly and protective, he is visible only to children and only a teeny-weeny bit scary.
The Cat Bus, with his Cheshire-like grin and searchlight eyes, flies around and he also is HUGE. He is manipulated by very visible puppeteers, all dressed in black, Japanese Bunraku puppet style to signify they are invisible. They are fascinating to watch.
One of the cleverest things is the way the puppeteers, constantly moving, create a forest for a little girl to run through. The forest continuously changes its shape. A brood of chickens, fluttering and cackling, are a comic delight
The two sisters are played by adult actors, Ami Okumura Jones is the elder sister. Mei Mac is extremely convincing as a very young child; and especially so when she is BAWLING her head off and I mean BAWLING
The curtain calls are a joy, putting the constantly regrouping puppeteers centre stage.
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