The Saitama Gold Theater Company, supervised by Japan's most famous theater director, Yukio Ninagawa, is made up of seniors — average age 75 — who were stage amateurs before they auditioned for the troupe. Now they play to thousands of paying customers every year, even overseas.
The company, whose oldest member is 89, is the subject of NHK's "Honto ni Atta Shiawase Monogatari" ("A Story That Is Really Enjoyable"; BS-1, Thurs., 9 p.m.), which follows preparation during the three months leading up to a five-performance stand in Paris last December. The production is a play written by Ninagawa himself about two women who show up during the trial of a grandson who is accused of "destroying public order." The grandmothers question the motives of the prosecutor and the judge.
Next month marks the 20th anniversary of the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo, the only time chemical weapons have even been used in an indiscriminate public attack in a major international city.
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