YEAR CREATED 2002
LENGTH 2hour 30min.
NUMBER OF CHARACTERS 11
(MALE) (FEMALE) (6) (5)
This piece was written by Oriza Hirata and KIM Myung-Hwa, an aspiring Korean writer, to be presented as one of the events related to 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan. The production, an exceptionally intensive International collaboration, was a big success both in Japan and Korea.
The time is spring, 2002. The place is the bank of the Han River where the people in Seoul like to gather. The Japanese students of a Korean language school, their Korean teacher and his family get together for cherry blossom viewing. In this epical piece, through their subtle exchanges, we see the past, present and future of the troubles and mutual understanding of the two countries.
We see the people desperately trying to communicate when language fails. We see the historical relationship of the two countries, family ties, the issue of Korean nationals born and raised in Japan Japanese Koreans and international marriages. We see the communication and empathy in spite of differences in conventions, ethnicities and the expectations of the native countries.
By capturing a moment on the river and delineating conversations laden with encounter and parting, the fragments of the present Japanese-Korean situation are quietly revealed.
This piece became the first production in the history of Japanese-Korean cultural exchange to win theatrical awards both in Japan and in Korea.
YEAR CREATED 2002
LENGTH 30min.
NUMBER OF CHARACTERS 3
(MALE) (FEMALE) (3) (0)
Hirata first wrote this piece as a rakugo, a traditional Japanese stand-up comedy, and then revised it as a three-person theater piece. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin gather at Yalta to discuss the postwar world, each with his own thoughts and plots in his mind. The world's postwar history of the past 50 years is fully and skillfully depicted in this 30-minute play.
● Tranlated Scripts ( English )
YEAR CREATED 2003
LENGTH 1hour 20min.
NUMBER OF CHARACTERS 10
(MALE) (FEMALE) (5) (5)
Wartime in the fictional near future. Japanese soldiers are imprisoned on a southern island. The time and the enemy are not specified in the script. The war seems to last forever, and the POWs have no hope to go back to Japan. If they did, there wouldn't be happiness waiting in their now deserted homeland.
The carefree life on the southern island, on the other hand, rolls on slowly and idly. Depicted here is the hideous tedium of the POWs who have nothing to do and cannot find purpose in their lives any more. Inspired by "TAKEN CAPTIVE: A Japanese POW's Story" by Shohei Ooka, Hirata has created another of his bitter and humorous dead-end situation pieces, similar in spirit to "From S Plateau" and "Kings of the Road."
YEAR CREATED 2003
LENGTH 2hour.
NUMBER OF CHARACTERS 26
(MALE) (FEMALE) (11) (15)
The time is some twenty years from now when Japan is still in the long depression that started 30 years ago. The place is the fictional 4th facility for training the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer Corps (the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps) candidates. This piece depicts the young, unstable candidates, each with his/her own dreams, to be sent soon to the assigned countries.
The news arrives that volunteers to developing countries for technical help will no longer be sent from the next year. They are to be the last. They worry about the future of the organization. One of them leaves when he can no longer believe in his dreams. The worry and loneliness drive some of them into love affairs and drinking, both of which are forbidden on the facility site. This piece poses the question, through the earnest dialogue of the candidate, "what is the essence of helping and being helped?"
Can we really help others?
Can we really be helped by someone?
Hirata wrote this piece for his students at Obirin University where he teaches.