The Elephant Vanishes October 20, 2004

A sleepless housewife becomes transfixed by Anna Karenina; a kitchen-appliance salesman is obsessed with an elephant that mysteriously disappears in a Tokyo suburb; and a newly married couple, provoked by hunger, holds up a McDonald's, not for money, but for Big Macs.

The extaordinary emerges from the mundane in The Elephant Vanishes.

Director Simon McBurney pf Complicite brings this multi-media theater piece adapted from three short stories by Haruki Murakami, perhaps Japan's most famous contemporary writer, to Ann Arbor. McBurney ingeniously transforms these strange, hauting tales of urban alienation into a brilliantly compelling work of technological wizardry, frenzied images, and lost characters. This mesmerizing production illuminates the unspoken chaos of modern consciousness.

"One of the most magical qualities of great art is that it changes, however briefly, the way you see the world. Emerging from this magnificent Complicite production into the City of London on a sulty Saturday night, I felt I was walking through a dreamworld where anything might happen." (Daily Telegraph)

"This is the most brilliantly staged joyride I've ever seen...one could go on and on, there are so many statling, inventive and technologically stylish moments in this show." (Independent on Sunday)

Performed in Japanese with English supertitles

Running time 100 minutes; no intermission.

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