Murakami’s Parallel Worlds, Reimagined for the Stage
A creative collaboration between Japanese and French artists makes the almost improbable possible
Haruki Murakami’s double-narrative novel “End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland” was first published in 1985; yet it has never been adapted for the stage—until now. Many readers would argue that Murakami’s fiction is best encountered at one’s own pace, free from the constraints of theatrical running time and the fixed tempo of performance.
Yet theatre lovers may recall notable stage adaptations that defied such assumptions. “The Elephant Vanishes,” directed by Complicité’s Simon McBurney and produced in collaboration with Setagaya Public Theatre, toured internationally in the early 2000s, including runs at London’s Barbican Centre in and New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. A decade later came “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” staged by American director Stephen Earnhardt at the Edinburgh International Festival and the Singapore Arts Festival. What distinguished the former in particular was the delicate balance between spoken text and visual imagination, between human performers and stage technology.
Earlier this month, the first-ever stage production of “End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” directed and choreographed by Philippe Decouflé, had its international premiere at Singapore’s Esplanade Theatre. This followed its world premiere at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro in January, with stops in Sendai, Inazawa, Nishinomiya and Kitakyushu along the way. Upon entering the playhouse where some of them watched “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle,” Murakami fans are greeted by an unmistakable image above the stage: the walled city from “End of the World,” echoing the novel’s iconic frontispiece. Downstage left, Japanese multi-instrumentalist Mayu Gonto is already at the piano—her soulful rendition of Umitaro Abe’s music score gently ushering the audience into Murakami’s dreamscape.
The opening scene sets the tone for the next two hours and 25 minutes. As Shinya Matsuda’s Gatekeeper sounds a long horn, unicorns emerge—dancers cladded in golden tights, white wigs and singular horns—moving slowly yet majestically across the stage.
Despite substantial cuts to the 600‑plus‑page novel, Ako Takahashi’s script adaptation remains largely faithful to Murakami’s original structure, alternating between the two parallel narratives. In “Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” the narrator Watashi (literally “I”) is a Calcutec—a human data processor—who encrypts information through “shuffling” technique, making him a target of subterranean creatures known as INKlings (short for Infra-Nocturnal Kappa). After researching a unicorn skull in a library and experiencing a series of increasingly dangerous mishaps, he races against time to deactivate a thought circuit implanted in his consciousness—before it destroys both his mind and the world.
Running in counterpoint is “End of the World”. Here, the narrator Boku (a less formal “I”) arrives in a mysterious town enclosed by walls and inhabited by unicorns. He is forced to part with his Shadow who retains all his memories while being subjected to harsh treatment by the Gatekeeper. In the meantime, Boku—his past erased—is assigned to read dreams from unicorn skulls in a library. The Shadow, desperate to escape, asks Boku to make a map of the town so that they might return to the normal world.
Tatsuya Fujiwara, whose “Death Note” fame has undoubtedly helped draw wider attention to the production, does not disappoint as Watashi, reminding audiences that he is as compelling on stage as he is on screen. As Baku, Ryunosuke Shimamura brings a buoyant youthful energy to the stage, his rapport with Shuntaro Miyao’s imposing Shadow lending weight and momentum to this strand of the narrative. In her stage debut, screen actor Misato Morita subtly differentiates her portrayals of the two librarians, shaping distinct presences across the parallel worlds. Taken together, the eight actors and nine dancers cohere into a unified ensemble, collectively shouldering the demands of this intricate and layered story.
Before the intermission, the pacing can verge on monotony, and scene changes are at times overly busy, though never bewildering. Much credit belongs to K. Ishihara’s clever set and Yukiko Yoshimoto’s precise lighting, which clearly distinguish the dual narratives—eloquently when the almost mirrored libraries prompt the audience to draw connections across the two worlds. After the break, the production finds its rhythm: dramatic momentum gathers and suspense sharpens. To navigate transitions between the parallel realms, Decouflé—better known as a choreographer and working here at his furthest remove from contemporary dance—introduces brief solos and duets, atmospheric interludes that lend the production an unearthly grace. It is telling that at the curtain call the actors bow first, followed by the dancers and finally the musician—an apt salute to a production whose elements are held in careful equilibrium.
In the end, this harmonious marriage of theatre, dance and music—where no discipline competes for dominance—achieves a rare equilibrium between narration and visual poetry. More importantly, it grants the audience, and perhaps their subconscious, the space to feel, imagine and dream.
One of the year’s most anticipated stage works, “End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland” resumes its world tour in July, with performances in Shanghai, Beijing and Suzhou, followed by engagements at London’s Barbican Centre and Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet in October.
To watch a trailer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0azWQfQ-Bt0. For more details, https://www.instagram.com/sekainoowari_stage. For a literary analysis, https://www.esplanade.com/offstage/arts/reading-murakami-now-wonder-and-discomfort
This weekend, Esplanade hosts its annual “Pesta Raya: Malay Festival of Arts.” Later in the month, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) production of Roald Dahl’s The BFG opens on April 22, while dance enthusiasts should also look out for Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich next weekend. More information at www.esplanade.com.
Special thanks to Gina Koh and See Ling Ling of Esplanade—Theatres on the Bay for all assistance.
*PHOTO CREDIT: Takahiro Watanabe
