Hideki Noda is a master of the theatrical endgame. In his 2012 show The Bee, a man’s family are taken hostage by an escaped convict so the man duly kidnaps the convict’s family. In this apocalyptic farce – the third of three Noda plays to be staged by Soho theatre, all starring the ever-playful Kathryn Hunter and all cast against gender – the family home becomes a prison of their own making.
Hunter plays family patriarch Boo, the self-styled “legend of the classical stage” clinging to more than 600 years of Noh history. He is going out for the evening but wife Bo (Noda, who also directs) and daughter Pickle (Glyn Pritchard) also have appointments and are just as determined to leave the house. But with Princess the dog about to give birth, somebody has to stay home for the evening. Who is it going to be?
Drawing on the Noh theatre tradition and featuring live musical accompaniment from Japanese kabuki musician Denzaemon Tanaka XIII, this is as strange and dislocating an evening as you can currently find in London. It’s like watching a heightened Ray Cooney farce crossed with Beckett and overlaid with a heavy veneer of Japanese cultural references.
It is distinctly odd, and yet in the end oddly moving, too, as the entire family’s failure to take responsibility for the future has appalling consequences. The performances are spot-on, and if the outlandishness of the comedy sometimes veers dangerously close to being irritating, the piece earns its ending as it demonstrates the madness of standing your ground and refusing to give an inch.
• At Soho theatre, London, until 19 May. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
