REVIEW: The Nosebleed (Woolly Mammoth)
Preview: What does a jungle and Aya Ogawa’s autobiographical play The Nosebleed, currently running at Woolly Mammoth, have in common? Tigers. The parental variety, in this case, though who can tell which is deadlier? The writer-director-actor’s show-and-tell production is as creative as it is hectic. But through the mess reveals a complex, Bechtelesque father-child relationship that is heartfelt and often hilarious.
Acting: Part of me wants to call this a one-person show; technically, five of the six actors play Aya herself. (The one non-Aya, appropriately named “White Guy”, is onstage for about six minutes). Each Aya, labeled 0-4, introduces themselves at the top of the show, directly to the audience, as the actors themselves. Right off the bat the show reaches its hand out to us, letting us know directly that this is a conversation onstage. Ogawa themself (Aya 0) introduces each of the actors in front of the stage, having them go recite a personal a failure in their life, followed by having an audience member do so as well. Yep: there’s no fourth wall here! As such, each actor does perform in flux between actor and character, which can be disjointing. They each have great chemistry, though. The performances do contain a consistent nuance where their real-life personalities leak into Aya as a character, providing for fun dialog that bounces between each other as they handle certain life events. It’s hard to single out praise since everyone carries an equal amount of weight, but Ogawa does entertain in slices by playing the non-Aya characters as well (their father and their child with the titular ailment). 7/10
Production: It’s almost like everything was ripped from the walls of the black box and thrown about center-stage. Which could also be said about the narrative structure, Aya themself ripped bare for their own experiences to be on full display. I liked it, and allowed the audience to really focus on each moving part of the performance, helped by the fact that the house lights are on for most of it. Something especially cool, which I partook in, was at the climax of the play when Aya’s father dies; eight audience members are invited to symbolically pick out his cremated bones to put into the urn using chopsticks. Immersive theatre, is, once again, extremely cool. I have yet to see it done wrong. Costumes are largely static, with each character wearing a plain white shirt except for Aya, whose has stripes. (Aya also changes into a different outfit to become her dad). The only significant costume change is also the funniest moment of the play. Right when you notice one of the Ayas (Saori Tsukada) is absent from the scene, she reappears in new garb to lead an extremely funny scene that I won’t spoil. But it really tied down the concept of coping-with-performance spectacularly. 8/10
Book: My biggest gripes with this production are with the book. Initially, it does not seem to have any direction. Ayas running about, Aya’s son with the nosebleed, a confusingly acted re-enactment of the Bachelor, none of it really made sense to me. It’s not until about halfway through the 75-minute piece that it comes together, and more of Aya’s personal stake becomes visible. Past this point, it becomes a poignant piece of tiger parenthood complicating ones’ death. By the end, the empathy is there, and you start to think of Aya - all of them - as a friend. 7/10
VisDev: As mentioned, the black box staging is sparse and serves to direct focus to the center of the stage. It works, because for me anyway, what I expected from the onstage action was what I got. The program and marketing could use work. While the front does show Aya having the nosebleed, which is a calamity in and of itself, it does not make an intuitive connection to the rest of the action. This could turn some people off from seeing this production, because it just isn’t clear what exactly it’s about. I would say a new name is in order. 5/10
