![]() There are many different forms of storytelling in the piece (oral, gestural, filmic, hand-drawn, musical)–how did creating within these different modes effect the content of the narrative(s)? I wanted to interview the creators about how they came to create this unique evening. Throughout the piece, I found myself thinking often about the artist as immigrant and immigrant as artist-and the indomitable human urge to strike out for new lands and new stories. And CLUB DIAMOND is absolutely that-a strange and wonderful hybrid whose meaning arises out of form as well as content. This wasn’t my first encounter with the piece-I met the creators this summer at the Sundance Institute’s first Theater-Makers Residency, which was designed to flexibly support new modes of storytelling. Lastly, we experience the most “direct” version of Tsukada’s narrative, as she speaks directly to the audience about her father’s words to her before she began her journey to America. But the story must be finished-even in these newly humble circumstances- and the fallen Benshi proceeds using hand-drawn storyboards and a manually-cranked projector. The next time we pick up Tsukada’s story-within-a-story, our Benshi is a rag-wearing street performer, selling candy from a cart he pulls through the streets. But both the Benshi and the film’s narrative are interrupted before the story ends- when the talkies arrived, the ranks of Benshis began to dwindle. Our live guide to this film is a finely-dressed Benshi (there were thousands of Benshi in early 20th century Japan, who provided live narration for silent films and were sometimes celebrities in their own right). Her own immigration narrative served as material for the play, and we first view a heightened version of this story via a black and white silent film directed by Appino. The work uses various forms of storytelling (live performance, silent film, musical composition, scrappy street theater) to speak deeply about our collective urge to tell stories, despite (or perhaps especially because of?) the challenges that can stand in the way of this fundamental human act.Īll of the characters in CLUB DIAMOND are storytellers, and all are played by Tsukada with a virtuoso’s delight. ![]() This January I had the privilege of seeing Saori Tsukada and Nikki Appino’s CLUB DIAMOND at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival. ![]()
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