The Garden of Words – Park Theatre, London

Writer: Makoto Shinkai

Adaptors: Susan Momoko Hingley and Alexandra Rutter

Director: Alexandra Rutter

With the hugely successful My Neighbour Totoro returning to the Barbican Theatre in November 2023 and Spirited Away due to arrive at the London Coliseum in 2024, Japanese anime is rapidly becoming all the rage in providing source material for stage productions. Following the trend, this version of Makoto Shinkai’s 2013 film The Garden of Words plants itself in North London, where it is receiving its World Premiere.

Defying the Disney traditions that animated films are based on fantasy and aimed primarily at children, Shinkai tells a human story with dark, adult undertones and, in its account of isolation inside a vast, densely populated city, it is more reminiscent of a live-action film, Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, also set in Tokyo. The first question hanging over this adaption concerns how a 46-minute film can be extended to 105 minutes on stage, even accepting that 20 minutes of the excess can be attributed to what feels like an intrusive and totally unnecessary interval. Thankfully, the increased running time does not mean that the garden grow a surfeit of words.

Director Alexandra Rutter’s production relies heavily on highlighting cultural divisions, making aspects of Japanese life seem strange, almost mystical to a United Kingdom viewer. The strangeness leads to enchantment and, when it is applied to reality rather than fantasy, even the grubbiest details of flawed human lives become more enthralling. Coordinated movement by the company of seven express emotions and daily activities, piano music composed by Mark Chol plays incessantly and a sinister black bird swoops and soars around the garden.

Cindy Lin’s set design is dominated by a large impressionist backdrop depicting urban greenery in front of high-rise buildings. It is in this garden that Takao, a 15-year-old boy meets Yukari, a 27-year-old woman on a rainy morning rainy and, on every subsequent morning when it rains, they meet again, unarranged, exchanging food and poetry. Hiroki Berrecloth gives a remarkably assured performance as Takao, combining naiveté and maturity, while Aki Nakagawa’s Yukari has the air of a lost soul who is deeply disillusioned and is planning an escape from the city.

Takao skips school and is caught up in a dysfunctional family life. His mother (Susan Momoko Hingley) is frequently absent from the home and his older brother (James Bradwell) is planning to move in with his actress girlfriend (Iniki Mariano). Takao dreams of becoming a shoemaker. Yukari, a school teacher, is the subject of ugly rumours involving also her head teacher (Mark Takeshi Ota) and a provocative pupil (Shoko Ito).

Just as the platonic friendship between Takao and Yukari is slow to develop, so this production takes its time to flower, not coming into full bloom until the final third. When the stories and the imagery eventually coalesce, the emotional kick is powerful. It is all strangely beguiling and strangely beautiful.

Runs until 9 September 2023