Studio Ghibli’s Anime Fable will be tackled by a new English theatre company in April 2013.
If you love Studio Ghibli’s work and would be fascinated to see how it can be translated to the stage, best start planning a trip to London for April 2013. Princess Mononoke, the period fable about a conflict between supernatural forest guardians and the resource-gobbling humans of Iron Town, will be performed at the New Diorama by the Whole Hog Theatre company.
“Using giant puppets made from recycled materials,” the New Diorama website proclaims, “visceral, physical storytelling and original live music, Studio Ghibli’s epic ecological fable is re-told for the stage.” Whole Hog is a very young company, and was formed in 2011 by recent graduates of Warwick University. “We enjoy the challenge of staging the unstageable,” they say, and this will be their first excursion into fantasy. It’s being done in co-operation with Studio Ghibli, one of the founders of which – Hayao Miyazaki – wrote and directed Princess Mononoke.
The anime Princess Mononoke is one of the most famous of Studio Ghibli’s movies, and grossed over $159 million worldwide. Its scope was immense, from its raging battle scenes to its weirdly captivating monstrous imagery. It’s difficult to imagine something that epic compressed to fit New Diorama’s 80 seat performance space; hopefully Whole Hog has a cunning plan.
Performance dates are April 2nd to 6th 2013, at the New Diorama, Regent’s Place, London.
Source: Kotaku
