End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland adapts Haruki Murakami’s dual-narrative novel for the Barbican. Director and choreographer Philippe Decouflé uses the theatre’s scale to distinguish a noir-like Tokyo from a dangerous dream world.
Tatsuya Fujiwara plays two versions of Watashi, with Narushi Ikeda and Miu Tomita among the cast. Ako Takahashi’s adaptation must connect complicated ideas about memory, imagination and technology while keeping the two strands intelligible.
The Guardian’s review praises the production’s ability to turn that complexity into a coherent theatrical experience. Its favourable judgement concerns the staging rather than a new reading requirement: visual movement and the organisation of space become practical tools for presenting a story whose worlds constantly echo one another.
