Yukichi Matsumoto × Shinichiro Hayashi「PORTAL」

Yukichi Matsumoto founded the Osaka-based theater company Ishinha in 1970 and is known for his bravado outdoor spectacles. In recent years he has also had hits directing Shuji Terayama’s Lemming and Kenji Nakagami’s Nineteen-Year-Old Jacob. Now he makes his long-awaited debut at Kyoto Experiment. Matsumoto will direct a script by Shinichiro Hayashi, the Kansai playwright who has twice won OMS Drama Prizes. Hayashi resides in Toyonaka, an Osaka satellite city, and his script will be staged as a pre-opening event for Toyonaka City Arts Center, which opens in autumn 2016. The title refers to puzzle games where a hole in a wall allows you to jump to another place. Specifically, Hayashi draws on the popular augmented reality game ingress, which turns the actual city into a game where players “capture” portals by visiting certain places.
In his play Hayashi develops a theory of the city from the perspective of the satellite town. Substituting the gaze directed at the city at both micro and macro levels within the changing landscape between the satellite and the metropolis, the play weaves a map through sound and body.
This project sets out to share a theater work across the Kyoto and Osaka region in order to revitalize the Kansai performing arts scene. Sibitt will play the main role for the Kyoto performances. As an MC for the hip-hop unit Origami and occasional poet, Sibitt’s unique voice will complete Matsumoto and Hayashi’s theatrical vision.