"Democracy" is an iconic buzzword of our times. What Webster's dictionary defines as "government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives" is routinely held out, particularly by the current leader of the world's foremost military-industrial complex, to be an absolute and pure political truth. It's presented as common knowledge whose mere mention suffices to quash dissent and stifle serious debate.

But how many people share a common understanding of this word? This issue is at the heart of "Democracy," which, through simple but brilliantly effective theater, examines the diverse ways in which people interpret the apparently simple concept.

The latest huge West End and Broadway success for English playwright, novelist and translator Michael Frayn -- which premiered at the National Theatre in London in 2003, and opened last weekend in Tokyo -- is a docu-drama set in the West Germany of the 1960s and '70s, during a Cold War era in Europe unfamiliar to many in Japan. Willy Brandt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his famous Ostpolitik, attempting to build bridges between East and West at the height of a period of distrust and division between the two Germanys.