The five playwrights who wrote each of the mysterious, suspenseful acts comprising the premiere of Meat & Potato Theatre’s newest production, “Shadows of the Bakemono,” had the challenge of ensuring the actors and audience members would see Japan through lenses untainted by Western stereotypes but enriched by complex yet comprehensible Far East reflections upon the different forms of life and death in this world.

Not always successful, the 85-minute production – marked by several highly riveting moments – engages a richly diverse, fascinating imagination of Japanese traditions of animist, supernatural, and shaman beings and forms. The effects of the bunraku and rod puppets, masks, and black lighting amplify many of the story elements and the opening sequence before the first story precisely sets the mood.

Indeed, Tobin Atkinson, director and one of the playwrights, deserves well-earned applause for making this risky venture work in the main. The writers are part of the Playwright’s Laboratory, a joint venture between Meat & Potato Theatre and Plan-B Theatre.

The acts were sequenced chronologically, starting with “The Tigers of Akanuma,” the opening story by Debora Threedy, a fabulist tale set in the 1600s. In penning certainly one of the strongest entries for the evening, Threedy handles with an adept hand the significance of tiger lore and symbolicism in the Far East. The story echoes cogently the ancient beliefs about tiger ancestry with humans and tiger villages as well as the thematic significance of the shape-shifting forms stimulating one to think about culturally extraordinary warriors, royals, saints, martyrs, and heroes. She takes the short story to its logical conclusion, emphasizing the vitally important precepts about the soul in the mediation of these shifting forms, especially in situating the production’s recurring motif of the supernaturally powerful woman.

Somewhat less effective was Deborah De Vos’ take on the Tek-Tek urban legend, which is about a young Japanese girl who fell under a train and died in tortuously long agony after being severed in half. Here, the actors seemed awkward and unsure in the unnecessarily wordy script, concentrating so intensely on making the puppetry work that the opportunity to build suspense to the penultimate moment when the boy reacts with stark terror and revulsion at his deadly fate fell short.

However, Megan Crivello’s “Hibakusha,” set in the days of the postwar occupation of Japan, succeeds on every level, providing, by far, the production’s strongest elements. Here, the puppets and spectral figures clearly find themselves at ease with Crivello’s story. Crivello, relying on her passion for history, draws wisely from the inspiration of the Hibakusha, which from Japanese translates literally into “explosion-affected people,” indicating those who suffered the worst from the saturated bombing of Japan and most particularly the atomic bomb blasts that ended the war.

Crivello’s story makes comprehensible for Western audiences the regrettably extensive discrimination suffered by the hibakusha, which still even affects the children and grandchildren of the victims who especially go to great lengths to make sure no one knows of their uniquely tragic status. The actors do convincing work with her story, reminding us of the permanent scars among those who still bear the effects of a hideous life and death.

The visceral impact of “Hibakusha” is tempered by the simple yet effectively stark story of “Train at Jomo Kogen,” written by Atkinson and the only act without the use of puppets. Featuring just two characters in mask, the story has two actors moving fluidly on the imagined railway station platform in a rural town outside of Tokyo where the ghosts of children killed in a bus accident will exact their price.

The production closes with Elaine Jarvik’s “Empty” which does a respectable job at distilling the roots of the Manga comic genre, especially in picking up on the spiritual and supernatural powers of the female shamanesses, priestesses, and warrior princesses essential to this literary tradition. However, the acting here tends to over-emphasize the angry, defiant tone to the extent that the scene resembles the tantrum of someone completely unhinged and the story loses a good deal of its impact. Rather, it would be more effective to portray the character as a chillingly reserved mature, powerful female, whose purpose is to kill and who is fully trained in using weapons for that specific purpose.

The cast includes Michael Gardner, Nathaniel Hinckley, Ruth Ann Jones, Sarah McLoney, Ryon Sharette, and Josh Thoemke. Other production credits include Kevin Alberts, costume designer; Heather Myers, stage manager; Sam Mollner, lighting designer, and Maylan Thomas, set designer.

The production, which runs through Dec. 20, has performances at 8 p.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays. All performances are in the Studio Theatre of the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts.

Tickets are $20.

© 2009 Meat & Potato Theatre