There's no play quite like "Monster Spider's" mix of Japanese theater styles.

onster Spider” is like “Star Wars” meets The Arabian Nights, directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

The play, which makes its world premiere tonight, previewed last night at University of Utah’s Lab Theatre and was written by U department of theater faculty member and technical director S. Glenn Brown and directed by his wife, Linda L. Brown, an adjunct faculty member.

“Monster Spider’s” form is based on several styles of Japanese theater, but mostly No theater. No theater is a theatrical genre literally unlike any other in the world. Dependant on stillness, exaggerated facial expressions and rhythm, No theater can be hard to take for the get-to-the-action style most American audiences are used to.

In many aspects, the slowness of No theater is like a warm blanket away from the troubles of the fast-paced world, like watching leaves fall off of trees. But the No theater in “Monster Spider” is also balanced with the more comic Kyogen style, Bunraku puppetry, and Kabuki. The world of “Monster Spider” is a world quite unlike our own.

Away from his home for seven years, the warrior Raiko and his R2D2/C3-PO-like assistants try to make it back to their kingdom. On the way, Raiko is separated from his retainers and winds up in the lair of the evil Monster Spider Tsuchigumo (played with panache by Cory Tallman). Tsuchigumo ensnares Raiko by telling him stories in order to make Raiko forget his troubles and become trapped forever in the cave. Meanwhile, Raiko’s love, Lady Joruri, waits and searches for her lost Raiko.

The actors in “Monster Spider” do a spectacular job of mimicking the movements and styles of all the different Japanese genres that the play imitates. It gets to the point that you perk your ears up in surprise when you hear the actors speak in typical American English (or at least over-dramatic and fantastical American English). The amount of patience and concentration it must have took to be in this play is undoubtedly staggering. You really got to hand it to these actors—probably quite used to being active and bouncing around all over stage—for staying still and stoic for so long. The quiet becomes so deafening that a stomp or a drumbeat can sound like a thunderclap.

A lot of the troubles with “Monster Spider,” however, reside in its narrative. In the end, it seems that the protagonist and antagonist incite a war between two spirits armies, then it turns out to be all an illusion…I guess. Also, Tsuchigumo apparently completely changes his appearance for seemingly no reason and without warning.

At the risk of sounding uncultured, “Monster Spider” is a play in desperate need of an intermission. It’s a play literally short, but metaphorically long. It’s enough for an audience to sit through a play that utilizes a style they are not used to, but to do it in the stuffy Lab Theatre, with uncomfortable plastic chairs, is another thing entirely. If the director makes the decision to give the audience a break after Raiko, and his retainers are reunited, the Lab Theatre has itself a winner.

“Monster Spider” plays at the Lab Theatre (in the U’s Performing Arts Building) through Sunday, Nov. 23. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Except for Sundays, at 7:00 p.m. and a Friday matinee at 4:30 p.m. Tickets cost $7, $5 for students. Buy tickets at the door, through Kingsbury Hall (581-7100) or through ArtTix (355-ARTS).
jordan@red-mag.com