Japanese theatre comes to London in cultural exchange

LONDON, – A central London playhouse and a theatre from Osaka, Japan, are this month working to prove any cultural differences between the two are superficial.

Theatres around the world have turned to international cooperation to maximise their impact, and Charing Cross Theatre and the Umeda Arts Theater first joined forces for a production in 2019.

After an interruption caused by the pandemic, they are jointly staging two plays in London this month.

Both are rooted in Japanese culture and focus on secretive relationships. At the same time, the concerns are universal.

“It’s really about getting great stories from all sorts of different cultures to Britain and to the West,” actor Susan Momoko Hingley, told Reuters, speaking in general of Japan’s export of culture, including films and television series.

She stars in “One Small Step” by Takuya Kato, which tells the story of a couple working for a company engaged in colonising the moon.

The plot thickens with the news the woman is pregnant, raising issues audiences almost anywhere can relate to about motherhood, career and inequality between men and women.

“In terms of equity, I think nowadays many people often say that we are striving for fairness within companies, within societies and between individuals,” said Kato, who has directed as well as written the play.

“But I think it is something that we understand with our heads but might not necessarily grasp it with our hearts.”

The London production, he said, allowed his play to be reborn “at the intersection of two different cultures” when for Japanese creative industries, the domestic market may not be enough.

“If we don’t grow the part of coproductions, which we have traditionally struggled with, it would be difficult to survive as both an industry and culture in the future,” he said.

Following “One Small Step”, which runs until Oct. 9, Charing Cross Theatre hosts “Tattooer” , the story of a tattoo artist who wishes to “carve his soul into the skin of a beautiful woman”, by another contemporary Japanese writer Takuya Kaneshima.

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