‘Totoro’ Stage Adaptation Opens This Year By Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company

Illustration 156244337 © Ukrainian artist Mariya Tarasova | Dreamstime.com

Satsuki, Mei, and their fluffy mystical friend Totoro will greet audiences once again this year—this time on stage. Studio Ghibli has chosen the reputed British Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) to bring the Hayao Miyazaki animation to life.

The stage adaptation ropes in a few figures who were central to the success of the 1988 film. Joe Hisaishi, the original composer of My Neighbor Totoro, fills in the role of executive producer. And Studio Ghibli’s co-founder Toshio Suzuki, who helped produce the animation, will create some of the production’s hand-drawn artwork, Variety reports.

The adaptation will feature some of the original music, in addition to songs that never made it to the silver screen—though it’s worth stressing that it won’t be a musical, says Deadline.

The cast list—which will sport performers of Japanese, East, and Southeast Asian heritage—will be revealed at a later date. What’s clear is that the two young sisters will not be reprised by children, as the lead roles would have to take on many hats, including puppetry.

My Neighbor Totoro chronicles one summer when Mei and Satsuki’s family moves to the countryside to be closer to the remote hospital their ill mother is recuperating in. There, the sisters are introduced to a world of magical creatures and taken on new adventures.

Accordingly, Studio Ghibli got in touch with RSC after seeing how well the theater company had interpreted Roald Dahl’s Matilda and turned it into a multi-award-winning musical, and it’s confident that RSC’s magical touch will transport this project to a global scale.

Hisaishi says the British company’s works have a stage quality that harmonizes with Miyazaki’s aesthetic, and that he is extremely careful about “not harming the film.” 

Playwright Tom Morton-Smith, who is adapting the story, flew down to Japan to meet Miyazaki, who asked him if he was a feminist. The filmmaker was relieved to know that Morton-Smith was one, as it was crucial that the stage adaptation did the girls justice, the writer recounts to Variety.

Official dates have been announced: Fans can prepare to be spirited away fairly soon as the adaptation will take to the stage at London’s Barbican arts complex for a course of 15 weeks, from October 8, 2022, through January 21, 2023.

[via Variety, AV Club, Deadline, cover illustration 156244337 © Ukrainian artist Mariya Tarasova | Dreamstime.com]