“It’s simply a beautiful – if tragic – story, beautifully told” 

Jennifer Van Evra  The Georgia Straight, Vancouver

“Yuki Kawahisa has accomplished something remarkable” 

Kyle Ancowitz　NYTheatre.com, NYC

“(Kawahisa) proved adept at capturing poignant or dramatic moments...”

Adrian Chamberlain  Times Colonist, Victoria

“...powerful drama” 

“…a truly unique and fearless bit of theatre”

Steve Tilley   The Edmonton Sun, Edmonton

“ tour-de-force performance” 

“intense, emotionally wrenching and deeply rewarding.”

 Heather Watson  Terminal City Weekly, Vancouver

“Love it or hate it” 

“undeniably intriguing”

 Adam Houston   SEE Magazine, Edmonton

The Kimono Loosened (Solo/Drama) 65min Written and Performed by Yuki Kawahisa 

Direction and dramaturge: Maureen Robinson

The Kimono Loosened is the story of a family fragmented and torn apart by personal desires. At the centre of this compelling story exists a woman sold to a Geisha house at a young age by her father. On her journey back to freedom she is accompanied by a special doll, a doll made by a master’s hand, a doll possessing a spirit … a living doll. Sakura was a doll made by her father for her mother and then subsequently passed down to her. In Japan there are many traditional stories and mysteries that revolve around these dolls. Stories of hair that grows and tears that are shed, of strange movements at midnight and of curses brought to fruition.  

Yuki Kawahisa specifically wrote The Kimono Loosened for the Vancouver Fringe Festival 2000. The show opened with three friends and a Fringe volunteer in the audience and closed with a sold out house. Since then it has gone on to perform at the UNO Festival of Solo performance in Victoria, The BC Festival of the Arts in Fort St. John and Fringe Festivals in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary. The show received very positive reviews wherever it played and was remounted at the Vancouver Fringe in 2003 to sold-out audiences and glowing reviews. The Kimono Loosened has been performed at the New York Fringe Festival in 2005 and at the CRS in 2006.

Reviews

”Yuki Kawahisa has accomplished something remarkable” “..her skillful performance in a foreign language is eclipsed only by the play itself, which is a subtle and unnerving puzzle that amounts to genuine poetry.”

"Kawahisa doesn’t linger on the exoticism of the Geisha figure; there is remarkably little that’s sentimental or romantic in this piece. Through the scenes of Tsukiko’s unhappy childhood, which are interspersed with dreams, layers of narrative gently peel away to reveal a lurid gothic thriller that recalls Edgar Allen Poe.”

“I was impressed with Kawahisa’s determination to create stillness and silence within her performance. Less confident performers lack the patience that she has to generate the atmosphere of mystery and menace that pervades the play, but she is saving the best for last. The intensity and detail of the characterizations deepen significantly as the play progresses. Kawahisa performs all the roles herself, dressed in sumptuous traditional Japanese garments and attended only by masked silhouettes that represent her mother and father. Grandmother, the Geisha house owner, memorably appears halfway through the piece to score some unexpected laughs. Late in the play, Kawahisa becomes mesmerizing as the vividly sensual older Tsukiyo. The sexuality in the play is unabashedly unhealthy and never divorced from the sense of subjugation that tattoos Tsukiyo’s life, but it still smuggles a lip-curling thrill.

The real success is the play itself. The language is disarmingly simple and unmannered, but Kawahisa gingerly layers fiction, fable, and the mystique of a faraway place in another era into an entrancing creation sweetly poisoned with the taboo. If the final sequence of dreams and fantasies confuse the storytelling somewhat, it doesn’t diminish the final moment, when we sense that the enchained crimes of the mother, the daughter, the enchanted doll, the possessors and the possessed, the punished and the punishers have all blended together until their separate identities are lost and forgotten. The performance ends with a crisp final tableau in which the doll, the mother’s mask, and Tsukiko’s living face are briefly, but startlingly, indistinguishable."  

Kyle Ancowitz NYTheatre.com

“This is a beautiful piece. Using sparse costuming and lighting, a minimum of text, simple movement, breathy Japanese music, and perfectly placed silence.”

“Yuki Kawahisa shifts seamlessly between the characters of the girl, her mother, her father and the old woman. Unfolding the narrative slowly, layer by layer, Kawahisa has such a powerful presence that she can change the entire mood of the piece by just slightly shifting the expression on her face. And because the writing is so pared down, each word has the impact of a freight train. It’s simply a beautiful – if tragic – story, beautifully told.” 

Jennifer Van Evra  The Georgia Straight, Vancouver

“There were many moments of delicate beauty. Kawahisa tells her story with haiku-like economy. Influenced by traditional Japanese theatre forms, she proved adept at capturing poignant or dramatic moments with a slight incline of her head or a fleeting facial expression.”

Adrian Chamberlain   Times Colonist, Victoria

“…quite an accomplishment.”

“It’s not for the faint-hearted: this is a tragic tale culminating in a twisted ending of bitterness, revenge and, finally, freedom.”

“It’s clear that Kawahisa has poured her heart into this work. She has a strong presence and has been well directed” “The set is simple, but effective.”

“Although the work could have become overwhelming in its sadness, Kawahisa offers brief interludes of dance movement and music that provide the audience with a moment to draw a collective breath and steel themselves for the next scene. This device, plus almost constant background music move this work into the realm of physical theatre.”

Andrea Rowe  The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa

“This is an affecting and beautiful told story”

“It’s emotional material that could teeter into sentimentality but Kawahisa’s open, honest and simple performance makes it very moving.”

Robert Crew   The Toronto Star, Toronto

“Writer and performer Yuki Kawahisa tackles five characters and Japanese society in this one-woman play.”

“Considering the multiple layers of meaning in The Kimono Loosened and the emotional depth of the material, the very existence of this performance is a miracle.”

“…remarkable. Every last movement and mannerism is meticulously developed.”

“The stage design is spare and beautiful” “…this is brave and challenging work.”

Todd Babiak   Edmonton Journal, Edmonton

“…our Fringe fest tend to draw only a smattering of performances that actually approach from the other side of any sort of cultural barrier. Yuki Kawahisa’s The Kimono Loosened is on of those rarities. It’s a challenging piece, but worthwhile if you can accept it as a glimpse of unique type of theatre and respect its tightly focused one-woman performance.”            

“The Kimono Loosened is powerful drama”          

“…a truly unique and fearless bit of theatre”

“As with any challenge, it has its own reward.”

Steve Tilley   The Edmonton Sun, Edmonton

“Love it or hate it, The Kimono Loosened is undeniably intriguing. A unique set of props are used to great effect. Yuki Kawahisa has an intriguing stage presence, and the dark script, about the life of a Geisha girl, takes some interesting turns.”

Adam Houston   SEE Magazine, Edmonton

“Seldom is so sordid a tale so elegantly executed. Measured, precise and accompanied by a traditional Noh score, The Kimono Loosened is a treatment of a familiar occurrence in Japan’s history”

“a major accomplishment by Kawahisa.”

Jo Ledingham  The Vancouver Courier

“From the moment you step inside the venue and handed a tiny origami crane, you enter the heart of writer and performer Yuki Kawahisa.”

“Her solo tour-de-force performance is intense, emotionally wrenching and deeply rewarding. Tiny gestures carry the weight and pathos of an ancient and at times impermeable culture, and her simple yet diverse characterization (notably the geisha house obaa-chan and Sakura, the living doll) are exquisitely understated. It’s impossible to look away, despite the dark themes of sexual abuse and incest, and there were moist eyes all around me when the lights came up.”

Heather Watson  Terminal City Weekly

“Not for the fainthearted, this tale of physical and psychological violence alternately lulls and shocks.” 

“Yuki Kawahisa's generous solo performance encompasses both beauty and perverse fascination.”

“theatrical tension through alternating spoken and mime sections via the surprise factor. An eerie score of Japanese Noh music and elegantly subtle fabrics for the costumes add interest."

David Lipfert  CurtainUp.com