Shuji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

Bluebeard is given a Harajuku makeover in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, a wild burlesque-like subversion of the French gothic horror legend. Shuji Terayama, father of Japan’s angura (underground) theater movement in the 1960s and ’70s, was repeatedly drawn to the story of Bluebeard’s wives and the locked castle door, culminating in this mind-bending game of cat-and-mouse that questions the very nature of theater itself. Saturated with dark magic tricks, fiddlers and accordion players, aerial dance and more, Project NYX, led by Kanna Mizushima, brings a cross-dressing cast of nearly 30 members to Japan Society for a production directed by illustrious Korean-Japanese experimental theater director Kim Sujin. Find out who escapes the castle in this macabre, magic-infused Lolita fashion spectacle!

Note: This production is performed in Japanese with English supertitles. The performance contains partial nudity. It is recommended for audiences ages 18 and older.