Theater Review—

‘After the Quake’ Brings Chicago To New Haven With Magical Results

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN — Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater is one of the most exciting, adventurous, and creative repertory companies in the world. When New Haven’s Long Wharf Theater  has the opportunity to stage a Steppenwolf production, Connecticut audiences are bound to reap the benefit, and that is definitely the case with After the Quake, Frank Galati’s adaptation of two short stories by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

Murakami, whose work is familiar to readers of The New Yorker, writes in a deceptively simple style that reflects his appreciation of American writers, especially Ernest Hemingway and Jack London. At the same time, his intellectual depth explores territory covered by Kafka, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Conrad.

He is interested in the points of intersection between the inner and the outer life — the fantastical world of the imagination, and the harsh reality of modern life with its scenario of natural disaster, terrorism, and crumbling social connections.

So how do you put this on stage? You get Frank Galati to take Murakami’s words and put them into a theatrical form that keeps the audience mesmerized in a mixture of astonishment and empathy, with a rich live musical background, and a cast of gifted professionals.

Murakami’s original work, After the Quake, is a set of six stories, set in February 1995, the quiet month between a devastating earthquake that killed 12,000 people and destroyed the city of Kobe, and a murderous poison gas attack by terrorists on the Tokyo subway.  In other words, the real world events provided a backstory for the surreal fables that make up the book.

Galati has taken two of those fables, “Honey Pie” and “Superfrog Saves Tokyo,” and made them the basis of the play. Structurally the play also has two stories going on: There is the realistic story of the relationship between Junpei, a lonely and introverted young writer; Sayoko, the woman he loves, who married his best friend; Katagiri, said best friend and a brash newspaper reporter (who dumped Sayoko after the birth of their daughter); and the little girl, Sala.        

In flashbacks, Junpei recalls his days as a university student. Too intimidated by his parents to tell them he was studying literature, he let them think he was studying business. In his freshman year he is befriended by Sayoko and Katagiri, and the three of them form a happy triumvirate.

Because he is too shy to confess his love, he stands aside and lets Katagiri get the girl. Then, after the inevitable divorce, he remains the staunch friend, available to help whenever Sayoko calls. 

Sala is so traumatized by television coverage of the Kobe earthquake that she can’t sleep. She has nightmares about a monster called Earthquakeman who wants to put her into a coffin-like box. In desperation, Sayoko calls on Junpei to come over and soothe her with his stories, in which lovable and appealing animal characters triumph over brutality and evil. He begins with Honey Pie…

Keong Sim is the narrator, who recites Junpei’s tale of a sweet and clever bear who is smart enough to sell his honey in the marketplace, but in the course of telling the story, and answering Sala’s questions, Junpei resolves to tell a new and different kind of story.

Now Sim puts on green gloves and glasses and morphs into Superfrog, a giant amphibian who appears one evening in the kitchen of Mr Takatsuki, a socially challenged, middle aged loan collector.

Quoting Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Hemingway (it’s not how a man wins that matters, but how he loses), Superfrog explains to Takatsuki that he needs his help in fighting the evil monster “Worm” who lives deep underground right beneath the bank where Takatsuki works. Worm is too powerful for Superfrog to defeat alone- he  will need Takatsuki to help him.

But I’m so timid and inept, Takatsuki argues, I’m not a fighter, I can’t be of any use to you.

Nonetheless, Superfrog insists, unless you do it, Tokyo will be destroyed by an earthquake on the scale of the one that struck Kobe.

What will happen? Will Takatsuki find his resolve? Will Junpei find the courage to make a real commitment to Sayoko and Sala?  Will the little girl ever go to sleep and let the grownups do what grownups do?

The plot description is necessary to put a framework of sense on what the audience sees, but it doesn’t do justice to either the poetry of Murakami’s language, nor to the acting by Sim, Hanson Tse as Junpei, Aiko Nakasone as Sayoko, and Andrew Pang in the twin roles of Takatsuki and Katagiri. Olivia DiMarco and Bing Klein alternate in the part of the little girl, with winsome charm.

Then there is the musical duet of cello and Koto (a Japanese string instrument) that provide both background and thematic commentary with a score that ranges from Schubert’s Trout Quintet to pop music.

The whole thing was as magical and delightful as it was totally unexpected — a total winner.

(Performances continue until March 19. Visit LongWharf.org or call 203-787-4282 for details.)