We chatted to Hiroki about starring in Our Cosmic Dust at the Park Theatre from the 2nd June until the 5th July.
What can you tell us about the character you play? So I’ll be playing and puppeteering the eight year old Shotaro. He’s really cute, fits into a suitcase and knows a lot more than most adults do about stars.
What made you want to be part of this production? The projects that excite me are the ones where I feel like I’ll be thrown in at the deep end, and Our Cosmic Dust definitely has that. The actor – puppeteer – puppet relationship that I’ll be
balancing in this show, as someone who has never puppeteered before, is terrifying. Sustaining the emotional with the technical is a challenge, but it and Michi’s directing, which asks us to take the most difficult, most challenging performance choice, is also why I expect to see myself grow as an actor, and that excites me.
The other thing for me, right off the bat, was the opportunity to work with a Japanese director. I hope I will be able to again, in theatre or film, but there is no guarantee that I’ll have that opportunity so I didn’t want to miss out on that either.
How does it feel to be working on ‘Our Cosmic Dust’? With week one of rehearsals down, I’m excited. The potential for this show to affect the audience is huge, and that became immediately clear after the first table read. We’re working with a really generous team as well which makes rehearsal fun.
What did you take from the story when you first read it? The first read in my bedroom I found difficult. Our Cosmic Dust is one of those plays that has to
be enjoyed live. The comedy and the visual spectacle of this production (puppeteering,
movement, projection) is essential to the storytelling and can’t be fully appreciated off of the page. That’s why the first table read hit me so hard.
What do you hope the audience takes from the show? I imagine that most of the audience has experienced, as I have, the loss of someone or something that was important to them. It’s one of the few experiences that is completely universal. A silver lining of grief is that it reminds us of our similarities rather than our differences. So my hope is that Our Cosmic Dust will make you laugh, maybe make you cry,
allow you to take a moment to remember but also to take a breath with the strangers sitting around you and us on stage. I think audiences will enjoy their evening when they join us at the Park.
By Emma Clarendon
To book tickets click here.