Setagaya-Silk (Japan), bring to the Edinburgh Fringe their adaptation of one of Japan’s most powerful war novels: Ooka Shohei’s classic Fires on the Plain.
It is presented as a solo performance by Nagai Hideki., a versatile actor who brings all the multiple roles to life across an 85 minute runtime.
With a detailed soundscape best experienced through headphones. this is a deeply affecting piece adapted and ably directed by Horikawa Honoh.
It’s about Japanese fighters in the Philippines in the later stages of the Second World War, as the American soldiers arrive.
The soldier is desperate and tubercular, and recounts his experiences while conjuring up each moment of trial, violence, and inhumanity.
The multi-camerawork is excellent, as is the sound, although the lighting is sometimes a little dim for audiences watching at home. We have close-ups to capture facial expression and emotional moments.
The subtitles are clear and detailed, and allow us to keep up with each element of the story. Filmed in front of a live audience, Fires on the Plain captures a time of conflict from a perspective we rarely see in the West.
Hideki makes each character real and multi-faceted, not forgetting the base emotions that affect a human being as his cause becomes more desperate.
Reflections of killing and being killed are both poetic and precise. As the soldier is weighed down by clothes and weapons, he seeks to find a place of peace, or at least a spot to eat and sleep.
This is a deeply personal piece about the people behind the decisions to destroy, hate and misunderstand.
Known best for the brutal and unflinching 1959 film directed by Kon Ichikawa, Fires on the Plain does not pull back from the desperation of those caught up in war, their exhaustion, depression, and addiction.
This filmed play captures both the adrenalin of survival and the raw mental wound of seeing the unseesble.
A heartfelt piece of work that deserves a wider audience, this is available through the C Arts Digital platform as part of Edinburgh Fringe.
4 stars.