The Japan Society Review

Directed and performed by Chisato Minamimura Scored in Silence was a mixture of performance, lecture, history lesson, and an experiment with new technology shedding light on the deaf experience of the Hiroshima bombing. Review by Alice Baldock

A collaboration between Damien Jalet and Nawa Kohei In a striking collaboration between the Olivier Award-winning Damien Jalet and Japanese experimental sculptor Kohei Nawa, Vessel blurs the lines between the human form and its environment. Review by Susan Meehan

Danced by Teshigawara Saburo and Sato Rihoko In the almost-darkness, there is a flicker of something beast-like, the sound of scurrying. A whisper of a tail, a tail too long to belong to anything other than something monstrous. Later, we discover it is a [...] Review by Alice Baldock

Co-directed by Maria Oshodi & Kumiko Mendl, written by Glen Neath Flight Paths brings together two pioneering theatre companies, Extant and Yellow Earth Theatre. Amelia and Sarah step onto the set, a flight departure lounge. Have they arrived from Japan? They seem to [...] Review by Susan Meehan

Directed by Indhu Rubasingham, written by Francis Turnly What at first appears to be a conventional family drama, soon develops into something of global significance in Japanese-Northern Irish playwright Francis Turnly’s latest work for the stage. The play begins [...] Review by Poppy Cosyns

By Rouge 28 Theatre A music box plays in an empty room; the only furniture a dresser with television, a mirror and a box of children’s toys on the floor. Suddenly the music is interrupted by a child’s voice calling ‘Mama’. It becomes [...] Review by Heidi Potter

Performed by Katsura Sunshine Rakugo (meaning “fallen words”) is one of the Japanese performance traditions we are fortunate enough to experience today, as a result of an unbroken chain of teaching that stretches back at least to the 18th [...] Review by Alex Rees

Directed by Suzuki Atsuto 37-year old university friends Sunako and Nachi are working out in a gym in Tokyo, lamenting to grow old without a love interest. Youthful Sunako is paying huge amounts of money for a range of beauty [...] Review by Susan Meehan

At the beginning of After Hiroshima British soldiers come across the ruined city, four months after the dropping of the bomb. One soldier recounts the harrowing experience, of the shadows burnt into the [...] Review by Annabelle Sami

By Suzuki Atsuto What to do when the dolphin you are ‘keeping’ in a fish tank at home ‘evolves’ – introducing himself as meat-eating Putin, born to parents from the Sea of Okhotsk? The play is hilarious, full of surprises and [...] Review by Susan Meehan