Our Cosmic Dust
03 June 2025
Park Theatre
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
Our Cosmic Dust, currently playing at the Park Theatre until 5 July, sees its English language debut in a visually appealing production. The exploration of grief and meaning by Tokyo writer and director Michinari Ozawa is staged using puppetry, projections, and illustration.
Our Cosmic Dust focuses on Shotaru, a young boy who recently lost his Astronomy-obsessed father. The strongly autistic-coded boy, the only character represented by a puppet, goes in search for his father, who he believes has become a star in the sky. Along his journey he meets a host of different characters, while his mother follows close behind.
Despite the charming story at its core, this play seems to never quite find what it wants to be. It floats somewhere between children’s entertainment and more profound theatre, but doesn’t really fit into either category. It almost feels as if Ozawa tried to capture the magical storytelling of Studio Ghibli, but couldn’t quite commit to it fully. The adults in the play are too juvenile, feeling more like exuberant children’s TV presenters than real people, while the topics discussed are too complex and too simplified all at once. Trying to tackle topics as big as grief and loss and building community while superficially appearing like a cute little tale of a young boy’s adventure.
The cultural differences might play heavily into this as well, as the way Shotaro’s mother speaks about his being different and at times non-verbal seem incredibly ableist and offensively reductive of autistic people, going as far as making the mother scream “THAT IS WORSE!” when a young man tries to explain that he too was non-verbal as a child and has built a life for himself, so Shotaro might turn out like him one day. Yikeroonies.
The puppetry is very cute, but leads to actor/puppeteer Hiroki Berrecloth feeling very underutilized throughout the show. The lines he does get at the beginning are magical, but he is unfortunately mute for most of the show.
There’s definitely potential underlying Our Cosmic Dust, but it’ll need to find its personality first and decide where it wants to fit, and perhaps make a few cultural amendments.
