Frankie Finsbury
Have you ever comforted a close friend after a loss, expecting floods of tears but instead finding yourselves in fits of laughter as you remember small, ridiculous moments of joy? This is exactly the feeling that Kento Morita gives us through his show Japanese Grandma Funeral.
The show opens as you enter: the house lights are up and Morita is sitting in the back row in a red morph suit and apron, welcoming you in. As he greets each audience member in turn, the atmosphere feels strangely intimate, as if you are part of one group, all here for the same purpose: to help Kento remember his Grandma whose funeral he was unable to attend during Covid.
This familiarity continues throughout the show as the house lights stay up and Kento reveals how we will go about recreating a traditional Japanese funeral, namely through asking the audience to pick from a board of 108 numbered tiles which, when removed, reveal a word. These words prompt Kento to perform a small game (for example, one word is ‘numbers’ and so he must add two numbers provided by the audience). He then explains why we are playing this game in his grandmother’s memory (in this case, because his grandmother was a teacher). The tasks, games and stories are sometimes simple, sometimes complex; sometimes clowning, sometimes monologue, but they all contribute to building a picture of the woman we are here to remember, emphasised by the fact that on the reverse of each tile is a segment of Kento’s grandma’s portrait.
Whilst the premise and tasks are simple, it rapidly becomes clear that Morita will never complete all 108 tasks. And so comes the heart of the show: the fear of failing those you love after they are gone, not being able to resurrect them through memory, and only getting a glimpse of who they were through stories and the random little tasks or habits which hang on after death. It’s a show that is deeply rooted in incompleteness, in feeling that time with those we are close to is cut short and that we can’t make our experience with them “full”. But through offering the audience a brief glimpse of his grandma and of the culture she was part of, the show demonstrates that this is more than enough. It is a beautiful piece of clowning theatre which transcends the medium it is in to deliver a hilarious and heartfelt meditation on grief.
At the centre of this all is Morita’s captivating performance. Throughout the hour, he excels at playing the dual characters of himself and his clown alter ego who blend together seamlessly to playfully complete the tasks and then to deliver the more emotional aspects of script. His performance is raw and tender as well as being childlike and eager. Morita weaves together the quick-wit of a stand-up with the mischievous instincts of a clown and the intimacy of a solo actor. The result is an astounding show which feels like a one-man play dressed up as a clown show and left me feeling moved and joyous.
Hilarious, intimate, and joyful, Japanese Grandma Funeral delivers a glimpse into life, death, and familial love which transcends the boundaries of genre to deliver an experience which is more than the sum of its parts.
Catch Japanese Grandma Funeral at Playground 1 at ZOO Playground from 7-30 August at 17:45 (60 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Eve Miller
Salvador Kent
