Wonders of Magic

You want magic? Consider, if you will, this bizarre show. It features actors from the Caucasus region (betwixt the borders of Europe and Asia) staging the short stories of a Japanese author, which feature an Indian mystic and an episode set in China. All told in Georgian with English subtitles. It's a tectonic clash of languages and cultures. The fact that it is coherent at all is a minor miracle.

The wonderment fades, however, beyond this superficial achievement. It is an energetic, but ultimately ragged performance. The air of amateurism hangs over it like a pall.

Based on the stories of Japanese author Ryunoske Akutagawa, a young writer in Kyoto seeks an Indian philosopher who he believes can teach him magic. Instead the Indian spikes his tea and sends him tumbling in a narcotic haze into stories from the past.

We are treated to a tale about a master thief and his relationship with a merchant family and a story about a Japanese man in China whose legs are swapped for those of a horse. Both are fitfully involving, especially the latter, but chaotically staged.

There are attempts to unify the play as a quest to find the border between good and evil. This doesn’t really work, especially in the messy closing section, which features a double-bluff like the one used by Willy Wonka on Charlie Bucket, only much more drawn out and significantly less satisfying.

Sadly this is one act of theatrical magic that inspires not so much wonder as a shrug.