End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s seminal works of magical realism are essentially unstageable but have – nonetheless – been staged occasionally, with adaptations of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles and Kafka on the Shore having made it to the UK in relatively recent times. The latter had a run at the Barbican, and it’s there that this adaptation of Murakami’s early work Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World will run as part of an international tour. Adapted by Ako Takahashi, directed by Philippe Decouflé, and with Japanese movie star Tatsuya Fujiwara in the lead, the original story is set in two distinct worlds: one a dystopian future, the other mystical town populated by fantastical beasts. The book alternated chapters set in each, but one wonders if the reversal of the story’s name for this stage outing indicates that the dystopian End of the World will here be followed by the mystical Hard-Boiled Wonderland. Either way, it should be a thing of rare imagination.