The Lady Aoi
by Yukio Mishima
presented by the Provincetown TW Festival
and the Provincetown Theater
directed by Fred Abrahamse
featuring Marcel Meyer and Justin Chevalier
DRAMA — GHOST STORY
An apparition haunts a hospital bed in this modern version of an ancient Japanese Noh play. The highly acclaimed production from South Africa is performed with puppets, masks, and live actors.
ABRAHAMSE AND MEYER PRODUCTIONS
Cape Town, South Africa
In Mishima’s modern take on a 15th-century Noh play, an apparition haunts a woman in a hospital room while a mysterious nurse looks on. As body and spirit mix, violent thoughts turn erotic, and a deeper window opens onto a time of fierce beauty and lost love.
Five years after The Lady Aoi became a sleeper hit at the Festival, Abrahamse and Meyer are remounting their iconic production. “The major theme of The Lady Aoi is unrequited love,” says performer Marcel Meyer. “At some stage, almost everyone has been deeply in love with a person who isn't in love with them. All the pain and suffering that brings -- Mishima has beautifully distilled that essence in his sparse and poetic little play.”
Abrahamse and Meyer Productions previously produced Hamlet and Sweet Bird of Youth at the Festival in 2017, as well as Desire Under the Elms in 2016, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore and The Day On Which a Man Dies in 2015, Mishima’s The Lady Aoi in 2014, and Kingdom of Earth in 2012 and 2013.