How Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away became a stage play — and a musical

When Toho Stage released the first photos of the puppets and performers from its live theater adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved anime movie Spirited AwayIt was a recipe for FOMO. Images were stunning, funny, and rich. Miyazaki’s story about a young girl named Chihiro, trapped in the spirit world and forced to work at a bathhouse for the gods, never seemed like a project that could work outside of animation, but the photos were compelling. It was obvious that many of the fans who follow Miyazaki, and Japanese production studio Studio Ghibli, would not be able to attend the performance.

Spirited Away Live on StageIt lives up to the initial promises. The stage show was filmed in two versions, each with a different set of actors playing the roles of Chihiro, and Yubaba the witch that runs the spirit bathroom. Both versions are a chance for international audiences to see how renowned stage director John Caird transformed Miyazaki’s work into a live stage show, mixing traditional Japanese stage techniques with Western ones, and adding musical numbers written by Miyazaki himself. Polygon sat down with Caird (who also directed both film versions) to talk about the adaptation process, how he got Miyazaki’s approval, and where he had to work hardest to get such a vividly visual movie to work in live action.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

GKIDS

Polygon: One of the early reports that appeared on this show said you were able to meet with Hayao Mikazaki, and he gave his full blessing for the stage adaptation. How did he convince you?

John Caird: At the time I first met Toshio, his producer, I assumed I would find it difficult to convince them. Largely, I suppose, because I myself didn’t really know how to do what I was describing. This seemed to be an impossible job.

What I explained to them with some quick drawings was that, in my opinion, the secret to a great show would be to have the bathroom on the stage. Sen. ChihiroMost of the action occurs in one area. [Ed. note: The movie’s Japanese title is Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi.] That’s unusual for Miyazaki’s movies — most of them range around over mountains and through clouds, up in the air and underground. But this one has a basic theatrical setting — the bathhouse itself. It was then I told my designers that I wanted them to make a stage bathhouse. Then I gave a rough idea of how to do it. That was it. Enough for them.

Then I told them how wonderful it would have been to see his characters performed by actors. He agreed almost immediately. It didn’t take long. And then he said, “OK, you can do it — but how are you going to do it?” And I thought, “Oh Lord, I’ve got to do it now.”

Miyazaki has a reputation as a notorious curmudgeon—

Oh no, he’s not. He’s not a curmudgeon. His relationship with people in your field may give him a bad reputation. Because I think he’s probably not that comfortable with explaining himself, and explaining his process. Everything with Hayao’s work comes from drawing pictures, and that’s a wordless occupation. You don’t need words to describe how you’re creating images, it’s all in the images.

So I imagine he might get a little bit weary of being asked to find an intellectual backing-up for what he’s doing, or to find a way of describing his process. That would probably be a challenge for him. Whereas if he’s just talking to another artist, like me or like anybody else in our profession — we’re just talking about the work, and how you do the work in a technical way. He’s much more comfortable with that, I think. It was a pleasure to have him around.

Was he involved in your decision-making?

Not at all. He knew the film spoke for itself. I think the assumption was that I would be respectful with the material — which of course, I had no choice but to be respectful. It’s one of the best movies ever made.

The movie is full of transformations. What was your approach to creating those effects?

First, I needed to surround myself by a great design team. I’d just worked with Jon Bausor, the great British designer, on A Knights’ TaleIt was a play I performed in Tokyo. The time I spent with John was wonderful. John was the perfect person for me to come up with a creative way to do the bathhouse.

It was clear that I would require a great deal of help from brilliant puppets because the show has so many nonhuman characters, which need to come across in an exciting, vibrant way. So Jon and I knew we had to corral the talents of Toby Olié, the great puppetmaster who was responsible for War Horse. He’s just the best in the business. And as soon as we got him on board, a lot of the answers started to present themselves, in the form of Toby’s drawings, or Jon’s drawings, and the collaborations between them.

Toby Olie/Toho Theatre

Noh theatre is an element that you may not have been familiar with, even though it’s based on your tradition. BunrakuAs well. Did you want to incorporate Japanese influences into your stagecraft?

Yes. What fascinates is the close relationship that exists between old Japanese theatre traditions, Shinto and the religion or philosophy. They’re all connected. One of the ideas I wanted to incorporate from the very beginning — if you look at the kanji, the Chinese characters of Chihiro’s name, in the title Sen. Chihiro, “Sen” and “Chi” are the same. They form a Shinto door when we reverse one. The kanji caught my eye right away and I was intrigued. We’ve got to incorporate that somehow in the initial drive into the world, because it’s going through that Shinto gate that changes everything, because it’s only in the world of Shinto that you can meet the 8 million gods.

This idea was so exciting that I asked Suzuki to calligraph the name at Ghibli. And he did it for us, because he’s a brilliant calligrapher. He also decided that Ghibli could create the animation to open the gate into the show. This is fantastic.

How did you design the space to be able to accommodate so many individual bathing sets?

The brilliant idea Jon Bausor had is that he’s taken essentially a Noh theater stage and put it in the middle of a Western stage. The structure at the center, the walkway leading from it, and the platform that is located on the other side of the walkway are all elements of a Noh theatre. It was a great way to introduce the Japanese culture. Because there is such a strong connection between traditional Japanese theater and — even sumo wrestling is connected with kabuki, with Shinto. They are all the same. Sumo wrestling is the origin of hanamichi (the walkway used in kabuki theatre). The bridge that connects the bathhouse to the rest of the world was made using sumo wrestling. It’s a way of incorporating aspects of Japanese culture into the set, so you always know you’re in Japan, in an authentic Japanese world.

Grid View

Aside from the gate and some of the songs, there are very few grace notes in this stage adaptation. There was a general principle that you followed when deciding where to add new elements.

It’s not really. They are: Kamaji arriving, entrance of gods and just before intermission. And they’re all there for a very good reason: They’re drawn from lyrics Miyazaki wrote for Joe Hisaishi, as a way of explaining how he wanted the music of the film to be. These were printed in an image book. The song of the gods allowed us to have a parade of the gods coming into the bathhouse, which you don’t have in the movie, but we need in the theater — you need to have that sense of delight at seeing all these different gods arrive. You can easily see all the characters in an animated film, but you don’t have time to appreciate their beauty and diversity.

Kamaji’s song is a work song that was not particularly written for him, just for somebody working at the bathhouse. It allowed me to watch him work with eight arms and appreciate how amazing a construction it is before suddenly having to continue the story. The interval song — there isn’t an interval in the movie, obviously, but I had to create one for the theater piece. After the craziness of the river-god sequence, I just wanted to find a nice quiet moment of reflection, with the women looking out over the sea and quietly taking us into the intermission, so we arrived somewhere — we’d arrived at Chihiro having been fully assimilated into her new world.

What was the most challenging puppet you had to build?

The sludgy river god was very difficult — getting a safe costume for a single dancer to wear that was big enough, and gooey-looking enough. That was a big challenge because he’s got to walk through the bathhouse, then climb up and get into the bath. This was difficult. We had a lot of trouble figuring out Kaonashi. [No-Face]It just keeps getting bigger. The inflatables were a great start, but the size was too large to handle.

During rehearsals I had the brilliant idea that Kaonashi could grow by simply adding dancers. And that was more fun for the audience, and more fun for the performers, and it didn’t rely on anything technical. This could rely solely on the talent of the performer.

GKIDS

What was different about directing a film version of the play?

We recorded it with a lot of cameras, so we just had an enormous amount of material — I think we had 14 cameras altogether. The amount of footage we could choose from was enormous, so it took us a long time to edit. But of course the live show’s more fun for an audience, because they get to choose for themselves what they’re looking at.

The casting for this edition of the play is so remarkable — every time you get a close-up of the main cast, they look remarkably like Miyazaki’s movie. How did you go about casting?

I didn’t really think of copying the animation. It’s much more the spirit of the actors that you have to get right. With Lin, it’s that feeling of a beautiful girl who’s a bit skinny and wispy, and fun and full of life and jolliness. Facially, they’re nothing like the animated character, but they’ve got that same spirit, and when they’re speaking the lines, they’ve got the rhythm of the language. Mari Natsuki is the voice behind the Yubabas in Yubaba. We got the spirit and resonance of language for free.

Spirited Away Live on StageThe film will be screened in cinemas as part of special screenings between April 25 and 27 (with Kanna as Chihiro), and April 28 and 2 (with Mone Kamishiraishi). The participating theatres can be found here. check the movie’s website.