SPECIAL FEATURE
added life with their voices and gestures, and the world of the play that is made up of the dark insanity of war mingled with the customs of the Yorùbás was delivered to the audience through a three-dimensional structure. Meanwhile, as the play was such an epic, it was quite hard to stay focused on a two-hour long play without an interval. If it was put on stage as a full-scale production, the four beggars that appear in 172
the opening scene would no doubt entertain the audience’s eyes as harlequins and the fire in the last scene Madmen and Specialists ©Ishizawa Chieko
set by two old ladies, who were traditional shamanistic healers symbolizing the heteromorphic super-
natural powers of the African soil, would also become a huge spectacle. Although the reading performance was extremely interesting as it was read by distinctive actors and directed by Ito who has an established reputation for his deep and accurate comprehension of plays, I was left with a impression that the reins of power and the complex reality of wrongness in Africa could not be depicted sufficiently just through a reading. I hope that it will be presented as a full-fledged production some day in the near future.