The Bee

Synopsis

What would you do if your wife and child were being held hostage? It seems that the only option for Mr Ido is to accept his terrible fate. Besieged by cameras and reporters, the world is demanding to know how he feels. But as his personal tragedy is played out on screen, Ido decides to take control. Refusing to play the victim he seeks out a bitter revenge. A highly-charged, tragic satire, The Bee asks what happens when the victim becomes the aggressor, the weak become powerful and the watcher becomes the watched.

Our Review:

30 January 2012

Following a successful debut at Soho Theatre in 2006, Hideki Noda and Colin Teevan’s The Bee now returns to kick off the start of its international tour.

Based on a short story by Yasutaka Tsutsui, it tells the story of Mr Ido, a successful ‘salary-man’ who arrives home one day to discover that his wife and son have been taken prisoner by an escaped convict. As his frustrations grow in the face of police bureaucracy and media sensationalism, Ido unleashes his own perverted justice by himself taking the wife and son of the hostage-taker captive.

Set on a thrust stage, The Bee is an uncomfortably intimate experience with a skilfully conceived design to match. Throughout the performance, a reflective backdrop by turn aggressively confronts the audience with their own moral character, and reveals the suffocating machina of authority clamouring at the entrances to the apartment and baying for ‘the truth’ – a truth th...

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Latest User Review

Tarquin - 2 February 2012:

This is a shockingly good piece of theatre. How is it possible for such touching and piteous moments to emerge from so much monstrosity? I don't know quite how I felt about myself at the end....

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