Kuroko

At The Cultch until November 17, 2019
Tickets from $26 at tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363

Posted November 8, 2019

The stars of this show are undeniably set designer Sophie Tang and lighting designer Gerald King. Kuroko, written by award-winning playwright Tetsuro Shigematsu, looks fantastic:  an open ‘cube’ constructed with thin metal pillars into which are fitted opaque sliding screens. Lit by King, it seems to float in space, the pillars eerily glowing in the dark. Screens at the back of the cube allow for projections (by Remy Siu) indicating various locales: train station, forest, passing scenery from the train windows. At any moment, the set looks as if it might achieve lift-off.  It’s a stunner.

The hi- tech quality of the set echoes the hi-tech nature of the play and a story that unfolds on two planes. Part of the action is ‘real’: middle-aged Hiroshi (John Ng)  and his wife Naomi (Manami Hara) are sick with worry about their 23-year-old daughter Maya (Kanon Hewitt) who has not left her bedroom for 5 years. Shigematsu tells us in his program notes: “This is the phenomenon known as hikikomori. Japanese young people on the road to maturation, experience a setback: bullying, or failing their entrance exams. They retreat to their bedrooms and never leave, spending all their waking hours online, enabled by parents who don’t know what to do apart from leaving trays of food outside their doors.” Maya has withdrawn into this world.

So worried is Hiroshi about Maya that he seeks the help of Asa (Donna Soares), a woman who works for a business whose promise is, “Better Than Real Life”. For a price this company can provide an actor to play a nephew, or aunt or friend – whatever the client wants. Again, from Shigematsu: “As bizarre as this may sound, the rent-a-family industry is a mature industry in Japan, a place where manifestations of the artificial aren’t seen as negatively as they are here.”  Hiroshi hires Kenzo (Lou Ticzon) as a virtual reality friend  for Maya in the hope of luring her out of her bedroom.

This leads to the other completely different plane on which Kuroko operates. Kenzo’s avatar (Kilroy37) and Maya’s avatar (KobraKali) engage in war games with handguns and semi- automatic rifles. And, ironically, in that world a bond is formed between them.  We see them in full combat gear, hiding, shooting, retreating, running from imaginary enemies.

The two worlds – reality and virtual reality – finally intersect in The Suicide Forest that, from the program notes, “is an actual place in Japan, infamous for being the most popular destination for those wishing to end their life.”

Presented by The Cultch, inventively directed by Amiel Gladstone and excellently realized by the cast of five, Kuroko is a Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre production. Obviously a writer very much in tune with the times and technology, Shigematsu plays around in the world of virtual reality but his characters come to an understanding in a very real world. In the words of Maya: “I have good health, good luck and a good family.” She has, in short, everything one needs to be happy. An uplifting denouement is reached; it takes a while – what with the war games and a tangent in which Maya wears a white origami rabbit head and Kenso wears a bear head – but the payoff is worth the wait and it happens in a world I actually live in.