Here is a story of unrequited love in which boy meets girl who meets another girl. The doomed love triangle features K (Naruto Komatsu), lusting after Sumire (Millicent Wong) who, in turn, is drawn to Miu (Natsumi Kuroda).
Based on the novel of the same name by Haruki Murakami, in which these characters’ lives become entwined but might well be figments of each other’s imaginations, Bryony Lavery’s script sleekly realises the author’s quirks for the stage. These ethereal characters hover in an uber-cool hyper reality and share existential loneliness and unfulfilled desires.
In dialogue liberally sprinkled with pop-culture references and bursts of music from Beethoven to Joy Division, they speak quizzically. “What is beauty? What value does it have?” asks one, and then questions the difference between a sign and symbol, as if it were a Derridean puzzle. It sounds mannered, and sometimes grates, but the actors pull it off on the whole.
Wong excels as Sumire, despite her cliched role as a chain-smoking, Kerouac-quoting writer. Kuroda is rather more stiff as the object of her desire until a hypnotic monologue recounts an out of body experience, or a moment revealing the split self, which tells of sexual violation.
We know we are in a Murakami universe of stylised reality, reflected in a sharp and clever staging. Director Melly Still uses space and movement in inventive ways while Shizuka Hariu’s set design is a wonder, with a black pool on the stage floor, a swivelling white phone box as its centre, and graphic novel style projections (video design by Sonoko Obuchi) on adjacent walls. It looks like a monochrome dream, with elements from film noir added on that catch the notes of detective drama that enter the story further in.
The production keeps the 90s period setting but there is an uncanny sense, as the phone box is whirled around, that it might be a portal into another world, rather like a stylish version of the Tardis, taking the characters on their surreal journeys. The phone box contains another paradox, vital for communication but also highlighting the characters’ loneliness and their craving for connection, emotional as well as sexual.
Intakes of breath signifying scene changes and artfully choreographed movement show the characters becoming entangled in the telephone’s long cord. Sometimes this seems too contrived yet it captures the look, feel and sound of a Murakami novel. This is, in the end, the sticking point. The production has the same head-scratching sense of an illusive story and emotionally distant world, whose meaning cannot quite be grasped, and which melts away too quickly. Still, it is very beautiful to observe.
• At the Arcola theatre, London, until 25 November
