The Epicene Butcher

Kamishibai is an ancient Japanese storytelling medium, traditionally performed by monks to illiterate audiences. It consists of a box filled with paper slides, and the relevant images are revealed as the story unfolds. The artform experienced a resurgence during the depression, when storytellers would ride from village to village with it, as a way of making a small income. This time, it was a children’s form of street theatre, rather than moral lessons for the masses, and kids who bought sweets from the storyteller got the best seats up front.

The Epicene Butcher, and Other Stories for Consenting Adults, Jemma Kahn and Gwydion Beynon’s modern take on the artform, is executed in a similar way to Kamishibai’s second incarnation – the one with the travelling storytellers – but is definitely not for children. Kahn operates the Kamishibai box and tells the stories with the help of Chalk Boy (Glen Biderman Pam), who orchestrates the scene changes and generally casts an off-kilter air about the place. It’s story-time for grown ups, and it’s pulled off masterfully. 

Kahn is South African, and she discovered the form while teaching English in Japan for two years. The project started as an excuse for her to draw every day. Eventually she brought on TV writer Gwydion Beynon to help her with the story telling, and the show developed from there. 

The stories themselves range from wickedly funny to serious without apology, and the show moves smoothly, with impeccable balance, from perverted to irreverent to beautiful to macabre. The set is simple – small lamps, a chalkboard and the kamishibai box – and the style is a cultural mash-up of ancient and modern Japanese forms as told by a South African, but everything somehow ties in seamlessly. The title story, ‘The Epicene Butcher’, is the most visceral of the collection and it cloaked The Stables in a thick silence for its duration. Others had the place roaring.

This is the second time Kahn and co have brought the show to Fringe, and it has been performed hundreds of times since it first began touring in 2012. It is wound tight with experience, but has somehow remained fresh as a recently killed calf. Kahn is still so into the subject matter, and her enjoyment and enthusiasm in performing the show translates directly to the audience. 

The one flaw lies not in the performers, but in the venue. The focus for the bulk of the show is riveted on the one small point of the Kamishibai box in the middle of the stage, which makes line-of-sight of utmost importance. With its intermittent pillars and only half of its seating tiered, The Stables struggles with this sort of line-of-sight requirement, and the show might have been better placed in a clear and fully tiered venue such as the Gold Digger.

All the more reason to line up early and reserve yourself the front row, not just because “front seats get sweets”.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5