At the Terrace

A play written and directed by Yamauchi Kenji
Screened in cinema
Seen at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy
23 April 2017
At the Terrace Trailer

Review by Roger Macy

Here in England, as well as much of the western world, a niche business has developed in the last few years, screening plays, operas and shows, from the West End, or further afield, into a series of local cinemas.

The cinemas like it, as they can ask somewhat more than the usual price of a film ticket. It’s evident that a section of the public likes it, as they fill up cinemas on these evenings, getting the chance to see a performance close up, whilst staying within a short journey from home, for considerably less than the price of a night in London. It is also clear that theatre houses have decided that this practice is adding to their revenue, and not just to sold-out performances.

As I write, I imagine that a cottage industry of academics is preparing their papers on the new phenomenon. These writers will need, in their analyses, to explain why even central London cinemas can cash in on this business. But, pending these deliberations, I will hazard that one important motivator is that cinema-goers can see – and hear – better than they can in many pricy West End theatre seats.

It’s a business trend, but also a cultural trend. And some have been faster than others to take advantage. I have watched plays by Racine at the Institut français, giving me an illusion of understanding through the subtitles which would be shattered if I were to watch the play in the theatre in Paris. But it surprises me that Japanese agencies seem to have been slow to exploit these opportunities provided by modern digital transfer rates, both at home and abroad. I am still waiting the chance to see and hear bunraku relayed, or recorded from a performance in Japan – think of the opportunities for close-up. I also suspect that subtitled kabuki would aid understanding, and not just outside of Japan.

But beyond these unexploited pedigrees, the good news is that an opportunity has arisen to see an excellent contemporary Japanese play, At the Terrace, on the cinema screen. Most of the few Japanese contemporary plays that have reached London have been acted in English with stilted diction. A camera-captured, subtitled play lets us hear the Japanese as it was intended but still lets linguistic retrogrades such as me have a good understanding. It was shown at the Far East Film Festival in Udine (Italy), however, under the banner of a ‘film’. There are very good reasons, however, for me to review this entertaining play as theatre, and not as a film. Without, hopefully, getting too technical I will try and argue briefly why.

Although some play adaptations could inevitably fall on the border line, it’s my case that most of us have an instinctive feel for the difference between a relayed play, and a film adaptation. The modern relays do not simply place one camera on the front row of the balcony (as some early talkies apparently did) but cut between camera angles. However, those camera angles and framings are chosen to display the ensemble acting – how the actors are performing off each other, the better to project a drama towards an audience which the actors implicitly acknowledge by their projection – the ‘fourth wall’ is maintained. If it’s a live relay, the question couldn’t arise, but even if it’s recorded, no one seems to be in any doubt which they are watching.

The distinction is most easily shown by comparing some other productions that were screened at Udine. Miura Daisuke brought his City of Betrayal (Uragari no machi, 2016). But it had none of the feel of the ensemble acting of his previous play, Be My Baby. The film version of that had been made under the wing of a project where young actors are chosen and thrown to a director who had to select from a small cache of scripts by others. One Hitoshi brought Miura’s play script to life back in 2014 but, this time round, City of Betrayal was a disappointing mixture of soapy shot/counter shots and long location shots smothered with simply awful music. Udine also screened Shed Skin Papa (2016), filmed by the Hong Kong director, Roy Szeto. This was adapted from a Japanese play, Nukegara by Tsukuda Norihiko. But again, Szeto uses filmic language to follow his characters as they move about town. The fourth wall has gone.

At the Terrace, however, has none of this. We open at the tail-end of a party, on the garden terrace of the hosts’ grand house. In a film, this would just be the prelude to movement elsewhere. But the audience to this play soon realise that we shall never leave this terrace until all the characters have done their worst. I was not alone in being reminded, in this sharp and pacy comedy of manners, of Oscar Wilde. But there is no question that we are located in a contemporary Japan, and Yamauchi skilfully uses the conventions of politeness for the characters to repair each indiscretion just enough for their antagonists to be obliged to continue the fray. Certainly, we are in a corporate world of an ambitious middle class. For me, that is part of what makes the play so refreshing, at least in Japanese cinema. I don’t think it’s just the characters in this play who choose to spend their time mixing with the top, rather than the bottom.

The action starts, tentatively enough, as a well-dressed woman, not yet in middle age, spies a rather shy young man looking in at the party from the terrace. She calls him out for looking at a woman, younger than her, wearing an unremarkable party dress which shows her shoulders. Perhaps he was, but not in the predatory way that our hostess, we learn, is looking at him. Our hostess doesn’t leave it there, but extemporises the power relationship with some panache, until they are interrupted by more people coming out to the terrace, including the alleged object of desire, who seems to be playing the role of demur and quiet company wife.

Our hostess doesn’t yet feel fully in control of this larger ensemble and finds an opening to remark upon her guest’s shoulders. When ‘shoulders’ modestly deflects the comment, our hostess goes for broke and insists that our reticent young man judge upon the shoulders. He squirms hard to avoid making his judgement of Paris but the ensemble seems to relish the trial and no one lets him off the hook. Eventually he stutters a complement, not too half-hearted to be insulting, but not too fulsome to embarrass either of them at work on Monday. The ploy goes spectacularly wrong for our hostess. Some further mannerly gags ensure that our young guest’s personality shines to the ensemble to the eclipse of her shoulders, via much other repartee with reference to Kawabata’s borrowed arms – setting up at least two more gags. All of this is played out by the ensemble politely ignoring the elephant on the terrace – our hostess’ heavily advertised cleavage.

I have summarised no more than the first twenty minutes. Clearly Yamauchi regards the mores of a gendered society as his stock-in-trade, and yet can hit deeper, just as Oscar Wilde did. And he justifies this comparison in the invention of his dialogue and sustained wit. In the manner of the best comedies, there is a delayed entrance. And there are teased expectations, yet something does happen.

Yamauchi has brought his play to the camera under his own direction. That is not often the case in western theatre relays and might have had risk in a play already directed by the author. It seems, though, that a self-directed play such as Terasu nite can still have the discipline of a collectively examined script – in considerable contrast to many a meandering ‘self-made’ Japanese indie movie.

At the Terrace runs entirely without music, save for the closing credits, and also without any off-stage sound effects. With no filmic devices, it is entirely dependent on its actors to deliver its story, its pace and repartee. All of the cast perform admirably. If I have to choose, I would give special mention to the two female actors, as they have more to do off their own lines. Ishibashi Kei plays the hostess and Hiraiwa Kami plays her guest. The closeness in the real ages of these two actresses just makes me admire their professionalism the more. I’m also happy to report that no one over-acts. That’s especially gratifying for me as it has been a barrier to appreciation in so many recent Japanese films. Many a great thespian has reflected on how they needed to radically tone down their gestures when arriving in front of the camera. Wherever that point on the spectrum lies for a camera-shot play, Yamauchi and his troupe seem to have found it.

A foreign comedy of language could not work without a first-class translation, so credit should also be given to Don Brown. I should also confess to having watched this on a video monitor, as At the Terrace screened at Udine on the first Saturday morning, whilst I was still in flight. But the good news is that Yamauchi’s play also hits the big screen at Frankfurt’s Nippon Connection on the 27 and 28 of May, when Yamauchi will be present.