Photo Source: Erik Pearson
It's a refreshingly funny start to Silverman's delicate story of life and death, which takes inspiration from the Japanese myth of a wounded crane who returns as a woman to pledge love to the man who saved her. But the man is horrified when he learns that his beloved wife is in fact a supernatural bird and drowns himself.
Cassis arrives in Japan during "tsuyu," the rainy season, which is said to bring out wandering spirits. One year after her brother Junpei's suicide, she seeks out his spirit in both Tokyo and the afterlife, which Silverman and scenic designer Michael Locher envision as a highly compartmentalized archive. The crane from the myth, played with poise by Christine Toy Johnson, acts as narrator, clad in a dazzling winged half-woman, half-bird gown designed by Moria Clinton.
The crane also chases a ghost, that of her drowned husband, a surprisingly expressive puppet designed by Puppet Kitchen and deftly operated by David Shih. We encounter Junpei's ghost in three forms: his 13-year-old self, plucked from the archive; his 17-year-old self; and a female version that goes by Cassis' Japanese name, Naoko. Jake Manabat ardently conveys all three, as Junpei and Cassis try to reconcile the fragmented pieces of his soul.
Silverman's otherwise dexterously self-effacing script wobbles a little when it approaches these more sentimental and elusory ideas of identity, the worst offense being a foppish American musician named Theo (Barret O'Brien) who romances Junpei's ghost. Even so, it's never enough to mar the richly defined world that Silverman, director Katherine Kovner, and the designers have shaped. The production's more sensational flourishes include a few actual downpours on stage and the billowing cloths of Puppet Kitchen's enormous underworld librarian, Skell.
Presented by the Playwrights Realm at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St., NYC. Sept. 15–Oct. 1. Tue.–Sat., 8 p.m. (212) 239-6200, (800) 432-7250, or www.telecharge.com. Casting by Paul Davis/Calleri Casting.
