Once upon a time in the 1980s, there was a theater company called Gekidan Kenko (Health Theater), whose zany, nonsensical and sometimes radical stagings became the stuff of cult legend. But then, in 1992, this quirky gem was dissolved by its quirky Japanese founder, self-styled Keralino Sandoroviich, as he embarked on Nylon 100 degrees C, a project in which he continues to this day to take on a much wider range of drama.
So last week the air was abuzz with expectation before the curtain went up for the special Gekidan Kenko reunion production of "Tokyo Atari (Around Tokyo)." The play is being put on in that renowned mecca of cutting-edge contemporary drama, the cozy, 400-seat Honda Theater in Shimokitazawa, and will run until the end of this month.
As 42-year-old "Kera" made clear in the program, though, this wouldn't be a nostalgic homage to the old days; he didn't want to experience the same uncomfortable feeling that he got seeing his heroes of humor, the Monty Python crew, all watery eyed at the opening night curtain calls of the triple Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Spamalot."