31st production NEW EDITION THE NIGHT WHEN PHANTOM WRITERS SCRABBLE THE DAWN WILL NEVER COME TO kenji MIYAZAWA, osamu DAZAI, chuya NAKAHARA Oct.26(Sat)--Nov.3(Sun) 1996 Theme: near death / Place: Theater V Akasaka

About THE NIGHT WHEN PHANTOM WRITERS SCRABBLE

There can be a play which is more unique, more free, and newer. This work starts with this idea. Can't we create such a show where the audience, for example, not only listen to dialogues spoken by actors/actresses, but also imagine the words themselves? This production searches for the way to 'let the audience imagine the words' as a theatrical attempt. For example, scenes where writers are writing something appear so often in this story. All the action of 'writing sentences' is transformed to the action of 'playing the piano'; this extraordinary and daring direction is placed here and there. In short, the actors play and play the piano live on stage. The idea is to let the audience imagine some sentences with that melody. To make this more effective, there are only few so-to-say BGM or sound effects. "AME NIMO MAKEZU" by Kenji MIYAZAWA and "GANZE NAI UTA" by Chuya NAKAHARA are played as piano music. In addition, there is also an attempt to express these authors' new and unpublished pieces. The theme of this play is facing with death, and "dying heart". Aren't we spending days just so unconsciously, not so sure about being alive or dead? How can we overcome our mind which is apt to lean toward death? What is "being alive"? This play describes the "joy of life" through the lives of three writers, each of whom studied "death" respectively with his own point of view. For music, we have Ms. Shigemi YOSHIOKA, a singer-song writer. All the numbers played on stage are her original piano music. Ms. YOSHIOKA has done some unique work, composing music for lyrics by female poets such as Akiko YOSANO, Misuzu KANEKO, etc., and singing these songs for herself.

STORY

A young editor, FUKUSHIMA was facing with a fatal night. It is no doubt that he will be fired unless he gets MSS. within the night. But he does the same failure that he has done many times before. He seems to have slept deeply and profoundly while waiting for the MMS. When he awakes, there are three writers. Kenji MIYAZAWA, Osamu DAZAI, Chuya NAKAHARA are their names. Although feeling doubt, FUKUSHIMA requires MMS. But they look somewhat weird. What they do is just showing their old works, and they never dare to write new pieces. Furthermore, Kenji MIYAZAWA keeps blaming himself, and Osamu DAZAI tries to kill himself all the time. Chuya NAKAHARA seems to suffer from an auditory hallucination...... As FUKUSHIMA keeps urging them to write new pieces, 3 women, respectively, come to visit each writer. For Kenji MIYAZAWA, Tsuyu TAKASE who might have had something romantic with him at the time he was working for RASU CHIJIN KYOUKAI. For Osamu DAZAI, Hatsuyo KOYAMA who used to be his first wife and committed a double suicide in failure. For Chuya NAKAHARA, Yasuko HASEGAWA who was in a love triangle along with Hideo KOBAYASHI. Meeting these women, the writers start to write new pieces. But their weirdness increases on and on. Can they finish their new pieces without any trouble? First of all, why FUKUSHIMA is seeing these writers who ought to have been already dead? An enigma brings another enigma, and soon there will come the dawn to end this long and troublesome night....

This show is to be seen with your ears.