I have heard great things about this company. And I saw a DVD of their work and really, really liked it. This is, like, the hippest Japanese alternative, experimental, contemporary theater happening. they do this crazy weird fidgeting/gesture movement stuff with what (apparently) is kind of like, heightened colloquial language ala Richard Maxwell. Though it is in Japanese, so that will be a little hard to understand. 

But still – put this on your calendar and check it out!!

chelftisch Theater Company

Five Days in March

U.S. Debut Tour

Written & directed by Toshiki Okada

at Japan Society

333 East 47th Street New York, NY 10017

Phone: 212.832.1155 

Thursday, February 5, 7:30 PM

Friday, February 6, 7:30 PM

Saturday, February 7, 7:30 PM

more info at japansociety.org

chelftisch's Five Days in March © Toru Yokota.

“By juxtaposing global events and personal revelations [Okada] beautifully captures the distance and conflict between them.”  Yomiuri Newspaper

“Comical… excellent… [This scene is] characteristic of the theatrical symbolism in Okada’s work that gives it such strength”. Le Soir

In the days before the U.S. began its war against Iraq in March 2003, two Japanese urban hipsters meet at a post-rock show and get swept up into a one-night stand that turns into five days’ continuous sex. Such is the anticlimactic story in Five Days in March, the prestigious Kishida Kunio Drama Award-winning play by Toshiki Okada. Characterized by seemingly insubstantial narrative accompanied by exaggerated fidgeting gestures-turned-choreography, the ground-breaking and modern works of chelfitsch Theater Company have made them the most talked-about theater company in Japan. The story unfolds through actors who slip in and out of character while casually narrating and playing out scenes. Oblivious to the imminent invasion of Iraq, the slackers obsess over the details of a love affair, perfectly capturing the irony and impotency of Generation Y in Japan today.

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Tickets 

$35/$32 Japan Society members

Buy Tickets Online or call the Japan Society Box Office at (212) 715-1258, Mon. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Weekends 11 am – 5 pm.

Related Event: 

An Evening with Toshiki Okada & Dan Safer – February 3, 2009

Five Days in March tour dates:

• Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), January 15-17
• PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver, BC), January 21-24
• On the Boards (Seattle, WA), January 28-February 1
• Japan Society (New York, NY), February 5-7
• Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH), February 12-14
• Touhill Performing Arts Center, University of Missouri, St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), February 17
• Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL), February 20-22

The seven-city North American tour of chelfitsch Theater Company is organized and produced by Japan Society and is supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan; The Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN Program; and The Saison Foundation for the Japan Society’s Japanese Theater NOW initiative.