In the early summer of 2008, Japan's theater world was agog as details emerged of a decision by senior board members of the New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) to replace Hitoshi Uyama, its acclaimed artistic director, barely a year into the job, with the mainstream director Keiko Miyata from September 2010. (See this writer's JT article on Aug. 14, 2008.)
An NNTT board member present at the key selection meeting, 58-year-old Ai Nagai — a leading playwright and director, and founder of the Tokyo-based Nitosha (Two Rabbits) theater company — immediately put forward concerns about the questionable way the decision was made, only to be denied a response. Nagai then made her questions public in a statement co-signed by many other prominent dramatists, including Hisashi Inoue, Yukio Ninagawa and Yoji Sakate. Still no response or explanation was offered. Consequently, Nagai resigned her board membership in June 2009.
That episode, which she describes as being "nightmarish" and "Kafkaesque," drove Nagai to write "Katari no Isu" (Chairs for Talking), which is set to open its Tokyo run on Apr. 2.
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