The Legend of Morning Glory
August 28th, 2008 | Published in Morning Glory
It’s always exciting when San Francisco actor-storyteller-dancer Brenda Wong Aoki presents a new work, blending Kyogen and Noh traditions with Western forms and jazz by her no-less eclectic husband, Mark Izu. Adding to the buzz about the premiere of Aoki’s “Ghosts and Girls”…she first heard the story, from – of all people- folk icon Pete Seeger, with whom she was appearing on tour.”
Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle
Aoki encompasses the comic and the tragic with fine, quick, delicate gestures, using everything from her expressive hands and face to her long sweeping black hair…making relevant and magical even the most faraway tales.”
Los Angeles Times, Critic’s Choice
- A tale from the Kabuki written and performed by Brenda Wong Aoki
- Taiko Drummers of Maze Daiko on thunder drums
- Tokyo master shakuhachi artist Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
- Dancer/percussionist KK Aoki Izu
- Under the musical direction of Asian jazz pioneer Mark Izu
The haunting love tale, based on a story from the Kabuki, tells of a girl, the daughter of a powerful samurai, who meets and falls in love with a boy from a poor family. When the boy’s love poem about the morning glory blows into the girl’s boat, she is forever determined to marry him, turning down each of the rich suitors her father has lined up for her. Finally she runs away, determined to marry the boy. Unaccustomed to the world outside her father’s castle, she cries herself blind and makes a living as The Morning Glory, an itinerate storyteller famed for her tale of lost love. In the end, the two lovers meet one last time at a lonely inn on the banks of the Oi River.
