Born Kazumi Kobayashi in Tokyo, 43-year-old Keralino Sandroviich -- or Kera, as he is best known -- started his career with the techno band Uchoten (Rapture) which he formed in 1982 when he was a student at the Japan Academy of the Moving Image. Although he had planned to be a film director, when Uchoten became one of the biggest names in Japan's '80s indie-music scene, Sandroviich became an icon of Japanese youth culture. He established his own record label, before going into music production and working for theater, TV and film as a writer, director and actor.
Since 1985, when he formed the Gekidan Kenkyo [Theater Health] company -- since renamed Nylon 100 C -- Sandroviich has increasingly devoted himself to theater work. Nylon 100 C is currently rehearsing for "Nice Age," which he wrote and first staged in 2000. The play focuses on the Meguris, a family about to disintegrate due to the death of a daughter in a airline crash. Their family life may -- or may not -- be saved after their bathroom turns out to be a time machine through which they return to just before the end of World War II, to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and to the date of the plane crash in 1985 -- as well as, briefly, traveling to 2014. Sandroviich spoke to The Japan Times about "Nice Age," the freedom of theater and nonsense comedy.
How did you first get the idea for "Nice Age"?