Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2013
Anime godfather Hayao Miyazaki for years turned away requests to do stage versions of his masterwork Princess Mononoke, until a small theater company run by a 23-year-old in the English countryside was granted permission. Alexandra Rutter’s Whole Hog Theatre won the right to stage the 1997 classic by convincing Nick Park, the clay-animation artist behind Wallace & Gromit and friend of Miyazaki—and then Miyazaki himself—that a clip of their stage proposal for Princess Mononoke showed they had the right spirit. Whole Hog’s adaptation utilizes large, original puppets to tell the story of how the titular character tries to rescue a forest from destruction by the materialistic people of Irontown, garnering high praised in the show’s London debut.
