After Life

by Jack Thorne

seen at the National Theatre (Dorfman) on 8 July 2021

Jack Thorne has adapted this play from a 1998 Japanese film of the same name (at least in English: 'Wonderful Life' or 'Wandafuru Raifu' in Japanese) which was devised by Hirokazu Kore-Eda. The play is directed by Jeremy Herrin with the set and costumes designed by Bunny Christie, and it features a cast of twelve: five 'guides' and seven 'guided' with some of these seven doubling up in ancillary roles. It is presented by the National Theatre in conjunction with Headlong Theatre.

The action takes place over one week in a facility where guides are assigned to the recently dead to encourage them to identify a memory from their lives which they are happy to take with them (to the exclusion of all other memories) into eternity. The guided have three days to decide on their memory, after which the team of guides will reconstruct and film the memory for the onward journey, which must take place before the end of the week. On Sundays the staff tidy up and prepare for the next week's arrivals on Monday.

For some the memory to be chosen is fairly obvious, but a teenage girl is somewhat put out to discover that her choice (a visit to Disneyland) is all too common for her age group; eventually she chooses something more personal. But should she have discovered this? The knowledge came from one of the guides, despite the fact that guides should only be facilitators; the apprentice guide (Millicent Wong) has yet to learn the constraints of the job.

For others, making a choice is extremely difficult; a young man (Olatunji Ayofe) is shocked to discover he is not in a place of judgement, and he prevaricates. An older man(Togo Igawa), perhaps playfully given the same forename as the director of the film, feels his life has been too much on an even keel for him to make a valid choice. The guide assigned to each case tries to encourage reflection without forcing the issue.

There is something rather haphazard about the whole arrangement, brought to the fore when a couple of the memories are reenacted. The stage manager - or would it be production designer? - is frustrated  in re-creating a memory for a young pilot who was happiest flying a Cessna through clouds - the props department can only provide the wrong sort of plane. Equally, there are difficulties in arranging for the right quantity of cherry blossom to fall for the childish memory of an idyllic spring afternoon.

Jack Thorne's adaptation skilfully blends a number of characters from the film and makes clear through dialogue what was achieved in the film by indirection and voiceovers. While there is a lightheartedness about the presentation of some of the memories, an older lady Beatrice Killick (June Watson) reveals a deeply affecting life story when she is finally able to acknowledge the emotional cost of her experience. Likewise the interaction between the older man Hirokazu Mochizuki and his guide (Luke Thallon, giving an excellent performance) leads unexpectiedly to an extraordinary and moving resolution for them both while at the same time revealing to us more of the workings of the facility. The guides, while trying to be professional and discreet, have their own stories after all, which can all too easily impinge on their assignments.

The film, which I have watched again before writing this review, must have nuances connected with Japanese attitudes towards death which may well escape an anglophone viewer (there are, for example, some references to unfamilar devotional ceremonies). The play wisely concentrates on 'domesticating' the workings of the facility and imbuing some of the characters concerned with a more familiar Englishness: for example Beatrice Killick is very recognisably a type of stalwart no-nonsense Northern woman and her reminiscences of a dance hall where she danced with her brother easily evoke the bygone focus of social life in provincial towns. 

It is a great pleasure to see an intriguing but probably little known film transformed into an equally beguiling play.