Written in 2003 by German playwright Rene Pollesch, "Soylent Green ist Menschenfleisch, sagt es allen weiter! (Soylent Green is people, tell everybody!)" is like a great sand dune full of hidden diamonds. Four actors -- three anonymous women and a man -- speak in monologues to each other and the audience about money, love and sex through microphones. A film of the action is projected on a screen, sometimes catching the actors off stage sniffing cocaine, singing karaoke, roller skating. What links the fragmentary episodes is the abusive language in which fundamental views of society, and love's place in it, are darkly embedded.
A contemporary dramatist from Germany, the 43-year-old Pollesch has just spent a month collaborating on the play with Japanese actors from theatre project tokyo (tpt). Before the opening night, he spoke to The Japan Times about the work, what some critics have termed his "postdrama" theater and his experience working in Japan for the first time.
It is difficult to understand clearly what "Soylent Green" is about, as there is no story line and lots of monologues.