Against the background of social development in Japan, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store depicts the genuine care and encouragement that continue between people despite changes in time and space. The story starts with three young idle thieves who accidentally enter the deserted Namiya General Store and find their time and space overlap with that of a number of letters. The theatre version adopts a different strategy of artistic expression from that of the novel featuring a constant attempt to make the words in these letters “three-dimensional” through the visualisation of many of the situations mentioned in the letters, showcasing them to the audience through theatre language, including shadow plays and integrating elements of puppetry, accompanying each transition with music. The letter writer and the recipient are sometimes separated on the left and right sides of the stage, and sometimes on the upper and lower parts of the space, to intentionally create a dramatic conflict between letter writing and reply, conveyed by the altering of the colours and intensity of lighting. This unique performing approach not only reproduces tenderness beyond time and space as revealed in the original work, but it also conveys humanity in a more direct manner.
By Frankie Wong
A theatre aficionado and writing enthusiast.
This article is excerpted and translated from Chinese