From Page to Stage:
Pluto

But how do you bring a manga onto the stage? Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui shares the process and mechanics behind the realisation of Pluto.

'The first step was to find the essence of their story and to make radical decisions about which parts we wanted to highlight', Larabi explains. 'We made a selection of the storylines within Pluto and had to let go of certain parts of it to make it possible. We used the original drawings by Naoki Urasawa and projected them on stage at various times during the play. In this way the whole storyboard would visually unfold and be revealed to the audience.'

'We used puppets to transpose certain elements and characters into 3D counterparts. The robot characters Brau1589, Ali, Robita and Arnold, but also Pluto, are brought to life through puppetry. Other characters, like Atom, Uran and Gesicht, are embodied on stage by our main actors. Finally we used frames, a steady convention within the world of manga, to guide the reader through the story. In the play we use physical frames to focus the attention of the audience on a certain detail within a scene. Ten contemporary dancers are omnipresent during the play. They are puppeteers, they transform the architecture of the space and bring flow and dynamics that are so typical to the art of manga.'

To make this a reality, the creative team had to work together to determine which parts we could tell through which kind of medium.

'We’re working with physical movement, puppetry, music, dialogue, video projections and with seven panels, of which the architectural composition is constantly shifting. Video artist Taiki Ueda and I had a lot of conversations about which moments to convey through the drawings of Naoki Urasawa, and which moments asked for the creation of new visual footage to clarify content.

'I wanted to explore the notion of manipulation with the actors. Some of the actors play robot characters, so I brought in the dancers who - like puppeteers - surround and manipulate the actors. My inspiration for this was the Japanese traditional art form of puppetry called Bunraku. I wanted to create a science fiction form of this technique, to make the spectator aware of the mechanical nature of the characters, although they seem very human.

'For the music I worked with Shogo Yoshii and Olga Wojciechowska, two artists who succeeded in adding the right dramatic feel to every scene. Their music for this theater piece is like a soundtrack to a movie, constantly transforming the emotional atmosphere. It’s also interesting to see how these composers with very different backgrounds would alternate and create different musical flavors. Also, through their music they embody the characters, like Helena and Professor Tenma, by connecting musical themes to them.

'With the actors we investigated as truthful as possible the characters they’re playing. Tao Tsuchiya plays two characters, so she had to learn to make quick psychological transformations, from the little robot girl Uran to the mature robot woman Helena. With the actor Mirai Moriyama we searched for a childlike identity and physicality, he plays the robot boy Atom, also known as Astro Boy.'