Spirited Away on stage: a feast for the eyes

 Spirited Away: Suspending disbelief

When My Neighbour Totoro came to the West End, audiences were as enamoured with it as they were by the original film, so it’s no surprise that the stage adaptation of Spirited Away has received a similar outpouring of support and praise. I was lucky enough to watch Spirited Away during its West End run recently and it was just as magical as you might expect. 

Puppetry is one of the best ways to adapt this Ghibli film for the stage. The unreality of Spirited Away’s characters and magical lore is apparent to the audience in the puppeteers on stage. We can watch the puppeteers work their magic before our very eyes, and seeing that happen doesn’t break the spell but rather makes us appreciate the craft and skill which goes into making the magic happen. The magic originated with the animators and concept artists at Studio Ghibli, and now that task has been handed to the puppeteers and performers. 

Spirited Away is all about us opening up doors and windows into other worlds - literally and figuratively. The stage is a particularly special place where that can happen. Think of all the ways stage entrances and exits can be used, the full width, height and depth of the stage, even the auditorium itself. When we go to the theatre we expect to be drawn into what we’re watching, but we don’t necessarily expect the very space we’re occupying to become part of the experience. Films are confined to the screen, theatre consumes us. 

There is something about the unique and ephemeral moment of a theatre performance which lines up with the experiences of Chihiro in the story. Like her, we suspend disbelief for a period of time, and we become lost in a world which is not our own - so much so that who we are becomes insignificant. Spirited Away on stage is the perfect marriage of these experiences. The curtain doesn’t come up on this performance. Instead we take our seats and the stage is already set: a wall of greenery overspilling into the auditorium, with the promise of something behind. As Chihiro and her family take their exploratory detour down the tunnel, so too do we discover there’s much more going on than meets the eye. As Chihiro becomes more and more wrapped up in the bathhouse and its occupants, the rotating set keeps us constantly moving from place to place but also tied down to a set space. Is any of it real, or are we following a young girl with a very overactive imagination? 

And all the while we are haunted by Joe Hisaishi’s music, performed by a live orchestra no less. The world we’ve entered is fantastical and surreal, but it all stems from a summer day when something extraordinary is happening: Chihiro and her family are moving house. Not unheard of, but still, a momentous occasion for a young person who is leaving behind everything for the great unknown. In some ways, maybe the events that unfold and the characters she meets are manifestations of her subconscious anxieties and fears around that change. She knows no one, is forced to make do with her new circumstances and tie herself to someone who rules this new world with an iron fist. Hisaishi’s music tells us everything we need to know about how extraordinary this all is, but really how ordinary it can be. In the midst of the madness, there is still great beauty and peace to be found in watching a train pass by, the waves, and the endless horizon, in feeling the cool night air on your skin after a long day. That’s one thing I feel is captured best in the film, those quiet moments away from people (or creatures of some kind), when the world feels bigger than you can possibly comprehend. No one does landscape shots quite like Studio Ghibli. 

Spirited Away on stage renders one of Studio Ghibli’s best-loved films in a way that is brilliantly tactile, real, and embodied, but still fantastical and wondrous. It brings Joe Hisaishi’s music the viscerality of live performance and it offers us a beautiful visual spectacle. It gives us all the best parts of theatre - the wonder, the total absorption of the senses, the escape - wrapped up in a beloved story.