Festival/Tokyo 13, this year's edition of the annual stage-arts festival, started Nov. 9. A unique feature of the festival's program is its many presentations that encourage audience participation, be it leading them around the streets following a certain theme, or guiding them via social networking services to assemble in public places to suddenly burst into flash mob-style synchronized dancing.

Sitting in a seat to passively view a talented performance and empathizing with the people on stage is just one kind of theatrical experience. When actors and audiences share the same space, what else can happen? What else is possible? The goal of the festival is to take multiple approaches to stimulate a dialogue and expand the possibilities of the performing arts.

Australia's Back to Back Theatre, in its first visit to Japan, brings "Ganesh Versus the Third Reich" to the festival. On the one hand, this is a dramatic tale told in a conventional play format, but on the other, it poses fundamental questions such as, "What is authority?" "What is a play?" And "What is an audience?" It's a work that realizes an ideal theatrical form, with both acuteness and breadth.