Kaidan: Night of 100 Spirits
Plays and Players Mainstage
1714 Delancey St.
Philadelphia
Ran Sept. 5 - Sept. 7, 2025
Seen Sept. 5
This show is part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which is running now through Sept. 28. Find out what else is showing this month through FringeArts on their calendar here.
On stage, a magician who called himself “Schreiben the Conjurer” stood in a formal suit, complete with coattails, and used a delicate paper butterfly to tell the audience the story of The Dream of Akinosuke.
Working to keep the butterfly afloat, he told us of Akinosuke’s full life lived in the span of a short nap, and the shock he feels upon waking from the dream. Just then the butterfly fell to the ground, and I awoke from my own trance. My doubts about the show crept in: was this white magician the right person to tell these stories?
I wasn’t the only person holding such skepticism. The magician had earlier published an Instagram post advertising the show, called Kaidan: An Evening of 100 Spirits, a play written by folklorist Dwight Sora which would be put on at the Plays and Players Theater as part of Philadelphia Fringe Fest this year. I noticed a comment underneath the post asking Schreiben: “Are you Japanese?”
To my surprise, the butterfly on stage was swept up into the air and landed with delicate precision on a rose. This lapse turned out to be a metaphor for Schreiben’s fumbling artistry, a self-aware part of the broader meta plot at hand, which explored the line between cultural appropriation and appreciation.
Building audience trust was central to the success of Kaidan: An Evening of 100 Spirits, which incorporated magic, music and movement performances to introduce Japanese folktales and ghost stories in the tradition of the Hyaku-Monogatari Kaidanki. That's a Buddhist-inspired parlour game from 17th century Japan during which guests tell 100 ghost stories, blowing out a candle illuminating the room after each tale is told until total darkness remains. Reimagined for this Fringe Fest performance, the trust needed by the shows' leads to make the audience believe in magic and ghosts mirrored the same trust the play's script had to establish in order to handle sensitive cultural traditions.
The play’s meta critique of cultural appropriation took center stage when it was revealed that Schreiben had stolen his bag of tricks from his Japanese mentor, Abe, on his last visit to the country. Abe arrived mid-show from Japan with the intent of recovering his things but quickly discovered that Schreiben had carelessly initiated the Kaidanki. After explaining the threat of mishandling this ritual, Abe decided they should finish the game together lest grave harm befall the audience.
This nuanced retelling went hand in hand with some of the most impressive and convincing magic tricks I’ve seen on stage. The show and its illusions were ambitious, but even when a reveal did not go according to plan, Schreiben took it in stride and the audience laughed along with him.
As the night went on, Schreiben and Abe took turns recounting the stories of 16 spirits whose image they would pull from a set of scrolls. At one point, Abe went to examine a scroll by candlelight and it caught fire. They threw it out toward the audience and a burst of flame erupted in the air — and was then gone just as quickly as it ignited. When the fake flame flickered the air, I was surprised to find that I had been screaming, and loudly I admit.
It’s exciting to find that you have been wrong, and a lot of the tension of a magic show comes from the assumption that the performer will fail to trick us. The magic prevailed, as did the cultural lesson and its implicit resonance. Where I expected a bumbling white magician, I instead found a series of artistic vignettes stitched together.
The ghost stories were accompanied by dancers and musicians who assisted in the telling of each spirit’s story. One musician accompanied the tale of The Woman of the Snow on the shamisen, a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument. Another accompanied them on koto, a Japanese plucked half-tube zither instrument, for a dance featuring quick mask changes popular in Kabuki theater. The music and movement allowed the audience to experience the expression of these folktales and myths without passing them through a western lens. The performances spoke for themselves.
The most haunting guest appearance came near the end of the show and received no explanation or translation. The doors on stage rolled open to reveal a figure doubled over in a white robe, their long hair hanging in front of their face. Taking their place on center stage, they lifted their own body, somehow creating the illusion that they were levitating. They parted their hair like it wasn’t their own, revealing a freaky, frozen, mask-like expression. The image was frightening and striking, and not so dissimilar from American horror tropes we see on screen (think the girl in The Ring), but all the more powerful and visceral because the performance was live. The actor's exaggerated features expressed the sorrow, longing, and loneliness of life as a spirit.
Earlier in the play, Abe sought to correct Schreiben’s understanding of the Kaidanki by explaining that ghost stories are more than cheap frights — they intend to honor the spirits. When you are only a memory, like the spirits are, having your story told is the only comfort you have. There is comfort in fear, or at least comfort in the trust and truth that can be found in facing it. As the play concluded, Schreiben left the audience with a final warning: “Respect the Kami, fear the Yokai, and revere the Hyaku-Monogatari Kaidanki. Do not make the same mistakes I did.”
