 Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. So welcome, everybody, and to the Marley Theatre Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY, my name is Frank Henschman, the director of the programs here, the executive director. It's a great place, we think, where the practice of theory meets and we talk about what you do and why, and that's something that is important, and that makes for what we also do for, what's on the line. And the center of our mission is preaching academia and professional theater, international American theater, and this project is a Japan playwright project. The Japanese play project is very, very close to our heart. 10 years ago we started it. This floor writer, Toshiki Okada, was one, and then this first time he came, come out, and many other significant writers came with him, and thanks to Aya Ogawa, who is over there, who helped us to co-produce it, to create it. She translated the many of the plays and is so engaged, also in our discussions here, so again, I would like to thank Aya for helping us to restart the re-do it. It has been a fantastic day. Yesterday we had three brilliant readings, I think truly extraordinary New York artists, the Japanese writers, and we have high expectations here. The Seagull Center, but I think all the readings were a stunning example that exceeded that, and that's not easy to do. We really would sincerely like to sangrate the Japan Foundation, and it really has been made possible through them, through their trust, and what we do, we have done many, many projects together, and I think that's also the reason I said, please do go ahead, it was 100% clear who the writers were. There were two boards of advisors, one in Japan, who selected out of us in 20 plays, as they suggested, 20 plays, and then a New York board that said, what would work in New York, how would a scene connect, and are there a variety of plays? So a lot of work went into that, and I really would like also to thank everybody who served on those committees. And the Japan Foundation did give out a little questionnaire, which we forgot to do yesterday, and I apologize, so please do write something in it. I'll take a couple of minutes. I think it's also respectful. It really, really wouldn't happen without them. They could bring the writers in here, so the Japan Foundation has been instrumental, and there's Kenji Matsumoto. I'm glad I just said that when he came in there. He's our great supporter, and a significant leader of that foundation that worldwide really contributes. And I think it's a model for an artistic exchange like the French Cultural Service, the Goethe, and others, but it's very specializing what they do here. We also welcome the Japan Society, who is here, Yoko Shuriahuel does, and many others. So we now come to day two, the two last readings, and they all here in your programs. So please do take your phone out. It should be on mute. We'll do the same. Is it all off? So it should not ring. And tonight, after the seven o'clock reading, which would be, I think, an hour, we all will go to the archive bar, which is around the corner on 36. The address is in here. I think number 14, East 36 Street. The playwrights will be there. I hope our supporters are always a fun event, and you can talk about life and theater and projects that have nothing to do with us, but lots of stuff has happened there, so please do join us. And I would now invite Sarah to speak a bit about the play. She directed it. It was the great Tony Torn who was here with us. So, I'm Sarah. And you die, of course. You die who's over there. Can you raise your arm? So he flew in from Japan to be with us. Just for a couple of days. It's his second time. He came to our Pinball Voices Reading two years ago. A brilliant play about visiting his grandmother in Peru. Fantastic work, what he did. And this is a follow-up. So we are really honored. He just got a very significant, the highest prize in Japan for his playwriting. So it's truly a great honor that he is here with us. So thank you. Hi, I'm Sarah. I won't say very much. But yeah, just really excited to be back here and share this work with you. I had the pleasure of directing the reading of you guys' other play at the Pin World Voices Festival. So it's been really a thrill to come back to work by the same playwright, dealing with some of the same themes of what does it mean to be a citizen? What does it mean to have a nation? What does it mean to be displaced? Which is some of the stuff that we're dealing with here, hopefully in a humorous and delightful way. So enjoy the show. God is difficult to discern who is human. The humans keep changing their plans. They are late. And they keep arriving, gradually, one after another. A long time passes since the first human has arrived. Finally, everyone is there. Until then, they wait. As you know, I am king of this island. But before battle, I want to prepare you one last time for what is to come. That fateful day is now long gone, but that was when failure was born. Yes, that was indeed failure. Everything began that day. There was a fishing rod somewhere. That day, no matter how long I waited, I could not catch a single fish on my line. Why in the world not? Once in a while, I would catch garbage, pieces of rubber, objects that could pass, possibly password-discarded furniture, or someone's photograph of forgotten people, paper scraps of memories, the drugs of grace. There was only a mountain of garbage surrounding me. I fished garbage and my arms traveled down the fishing pole. Under the gloomy sky, surrounded, shrouded in clouds, as I waited for the hollow sun to pierce through the sky, slumber infected me from my fishing pole. Then pursued by garbage, I fell asleep in the shallows. It was a very deep slumber. It was fatigued from having been sacrificed in the name of civilization. The carefree era before we knew fatigue had long passed. And I was overtaken by a fatigue that could not be resisted, a fatigue you couldn't possibly imagine. Consciousness quiets its breath, and an unnoticed calm draws close. It was a slumber in which any remaining bliss and tired joy slipped away. It is as if somebody flipped a switch and everything went black, and I plunged into the abyss. It was impossible to resist. The waters were gentle and graceful like a hawk at rest. And I was sucked into a giant whirlpool of time that was churning backward. My head was as heavy as a dumbbell. How long had I slept? It was a deep slumber. There was a slumber unshaken by ocean currents that could have torn my body apart, a slumber in undisturbed even as if my navel had somersaulted. Calculating 1,000 years as one hour, I had slept for 500 hours. No, no, no. It was a fabulably long period of time when I woke the gentle earth and disappeared. There was only ocean in sight. I lived a tiny existence among garbage in vast waters. Several times, thrown by violent storms and heavy rains, I'd bet myself lost in time, reversing course, and then I'd launch myself back into the mercy of the ocean. But no matter what night would come, they say destiny is made of water and wind. Not the water that quenches thirst, nor any wind that follows waters. Thirsty! Give me some drinking water! Thirst overcomes me. Like a blade, thirst tears my whole body apart. There was only blackness and the moon glows. Is it anyone there on this ocean? Anybody? I want someone to talk to. There was only the moonlight and the sound of the wind. Doesn't that sound like the sound of someone's voice? Doesn't that sound like the sound of someone's voice? Just now, on the gentle wind and calm waves, didn't I hear a voice? Didn't I see a figure in the wind? Thirst overcomes me darkness. I have been cast off by the world. A moonlight shines on me and creates my shadow. I long to see the shadow of someone who will offer me drinking water that I had slept so maturely. Is now strangling me. Time is my only attorney, and I await liberty. Once I was an angel, but I find myself wingless and therefore flightless. If only I had wings. I was embarrassingly pathetic as I drifted on the sea and swung or was a thing of the past. I say destiny is made of water and wind, but this wind water will not quench my thirst and the wind will carry me nowhere. I can't see! I kept drifting, and I never saw land. I embraced a boulder of despair, I'm really powerless. I was neither man nor woman. I was hungry. Give me meat, I can eat, I'm going to leg anything! It's a prison where I cannot even make a noise. You know my subjects, things do not always just happen suddenly. Everything happens at a certain time and at a certain place for a reason. So remember that if those minds of yours had that capacity, it was truly the matter of a moment. If I were not your king, surely I would not be here right now. It was only the matter of a moment. Yellow bird, the lights as though I'd never seen before. With a beak like a bright red banana and red-route eyes like apples, this monstrous bird appeared as if covering me as I awaited my verdict. And with its red beak, it snapped at my body in shock. I'd shouted out words that I had prepared. My time has come! For perhaps it was the end is nigh, as though I was being skewered lengthwise, as a burning in hell's fire. Before I could understand what was happening, I was woted. I am an angel. I escaped without fatal injury. And with superhuman strength, strength and endurance, I escaped into the water. It was warmer than I had expected. And I knew I had drifted south. In the dark black waters, there were countless white, thin threads, and there were numerous layers within the water. In the midnight sea, I was sea foam. First my ears began to hurt, and then my eyes, the sea water soaked through my whole body like needles and daggers. But before I sank into the depths, I spoke to the bird that attacked me. Since I have no wings now, I am a victim to the storms. Your King, whom you've come to greet, is going to sink in this spot. Mothering such words, I sank. And this King, who knew no defeat, succumbed to defeat. The bird's remorseful cry skimmed over the waters, and my body grew heavy. The water was heavy. I reached a layer of icy waters, and again had lost consciousness. There I was in the freezing water, without air, without a flotation device. And the bird spoke. When I feel peace amid the debris, you're supposed to be. You are just here without her being, and the subject of these perceptions. And you, near momentum, there is no purpose to existence, so you ought to remain there, frustrated. I don't understand! Bring me some water, and the chosen one. That much is certain. The earth itself, on which the sun shines. I know what rumors have spread among you wretches. It's as if I have 65 years. You should know best that even the sound of crawling earthworms, none of that escapes me. Make no noise! You have disturbed my sleep countless times. You beasts who have not even heard the grace in your gait. I'll let you hear this straight from my lips this morning. Today is a good day for you to die! As a parting gift, I will tell you something for the sun shines. Even the smallest happening, and the smallest rose are named. And everything is kept really immaculately clean. So every street does itself off, and sweat is made to evaporate in a moment. That clean street is indicative of a clean heart. And the likes of you will not even be permitted to step outside. Anything that falls off the earth is discarded. So be grateful to me that you are permitted to mingle and feed yourselves here. Rejoice in this privilege. My subjects, you pitiful creatures know nothing of cleanliness. Tell you how difficult it was to construct everything that you take for granted. Encountering me has been your life's greatest joy and treasure. Much time has passed. I cannot even begin to speak of the hardships endured. I bled tears to provide you with such comfort. I almost shed pure tears thinking about it. Of course, as king. This place, my king, though. In fact, at the view compared to my ideal it's not much. But trees that only grow here lie in the landscape and bats that can only be seen with infrared light perch on every branch. Those bats celebrate me without rest. The sky is clear as always as the rain may fall as you think. Gazing down the smooth slope of the hill, I see friends of many lives. The blue, red, and yellow flowers blooming on the green. The bees. Oh, oh, and my favorite the hermit crab that walks to and fro for countless hours. If I pet the hermit crab skull it hides its head and after a while it reappears and walks again. It is a yellow white treasure. My favorite pastime is to read with a grace that time. It resembles like, it's like reclining on the sand. A blue sky squeezed by the ends of my eyelashes and listening to the sound of that wind that follows the waters. You must never forget to soak up knowledge. My subjects, even I who possess a clear mind and a broad perspective who will never forget the importance of time spent in quiet even I never hesitate to deepen my learning. You must train yourselves to become more like me from the tips of your toes to the tops of your heads. Of course, every piece of writing on this island has been imported from somewhere else. I know there are objections to this. Oh, how happy you'd be if you were able to produce writings of your own. In any case I will never cease to devour books. The cruel hateful ocean was so gentle on the shores of the natural bay. Now I disappeared into the black ocean only to arrive here I'll never know. My body was bloated and soaked and I barely had any oxygen. Yet I pulled my powerful body and spirit together rose up and let out a shot. For a while I enjoyed my time alone although it was an amount of time that would have driven you all insane. Unconscious time unfurled before me endlessly. An endless amount of time unfurled before me unconsciously. One could say it was an innumerable amount of time. And I simply and suddenly waited for time to pass. At the end of my endless meditation I felt a sensation like a balloon being inflated and I regained my consciousness. I had expanded to my utmost limit and looking around with my terribly heavy body the waves carried a new never-before-seen landscape towards me where the greens of trees were drawn like toothpick against the yellow blue sky. The question was when was I? As I gazed at the waves lapping on the shores I bore my solitude and thirst and I was at a loss. When I encountered your first leader number one deeply moved and I greeted him very politely and carefully It's so nice to meet you! I don't know you but I expect you to treat me with respect since I am an angel from the land of the sun and also could I trouble you for a glass of water the thirst of my throat is the thirst of the earth the thirst of the earth is the thirst of the heavens if you have fresh water that's all I need right now I have no idea where I am where are we? judging from the position of the sun we seem to be in the south but I cannot discern exactly when did you come here? how long have you lived here? are there any humans like you? and also I want you to bring me anything else that has nourishment besides water let me soak in nourishment without nourishment I will never be able to fly again now memory is a living thing so this might be a bit of an exaggeration but that's pretty much what pretty much what I said the gist of what I said and to think that number one your leader I was shocked to learn in time that number one was the lonely head of your village but the truth is he was a primitive man he understood language at all and I was shocked as it pierced by an arrow shocked to the depth of my dreams shocked so much that in my surprise I went deaf I went deaf and was I I could not move then your leader pitiful a snot raised an animal cry and some meaningless sounds stomping his feet in the sky that same yellow bird that attacked me in the dark seas appeared from the shadows of the clouds and your leader whose readiness I cannot speak of without weeping that he carries with him in a suitcase wherever he goes cry out naked at blinding speed ran around till his feet were caught in the sand and he fell and he dug himself down in the sand to hide but he could not conceal himself the bird without so much as a greeting tore at me with its beak and from beach to rocky cliff we're in haka masu boulder and then stomping on the grass and escaped into the forest if you can be my wings then allow me to fly freely you must think again you must reassess your values is it right truly for you to revere that which is not an extremely self-satisfied cry like a mad circus and disappeared so got my breath in the forest under the forest floor made of many years of fallen leaves there was an unearthly glow coming from an enormous serpent that must have been 3000 years old I locked eyes with the serpent and then while time beyond the world passed as if I was in a sleeping embrace and finally the serpent spoke there's one enduring creature to another I thank you because if you were not here I wouldn't be here either it is easy to forget gratitude in our daily lives so from time to time I express it through words the only thing I possess as instinct is to flee from enemies the snake had praised me and then it disappeared and what happened next you all know I dragged number one out of a sandy hole and revived him from his state of suspended animation and then it took time for us to really understand each other but finally I taught him how to speak language and it took time for us and finally I learned of your existence I had no expectations of you but I built you a school so I could teach you all to speak human language to introduce you to the technology called language and then I signed useful numbers to your nameless masses because I cannot tell your beastly faces apart and I taught you the meaning of numbers I taught you to count and how you grew to love numbers and you with carefree smiles you called out each other's numbers how beautiful in this galaxy there cannot be too much beauty when I close my eyes in beauty I always see myself next to you so always cherish the heart that appreciates beauty yes this island is beautiful it is unbelievably lustrous and gorgeous like a school of tiny fish or the gentle waves or the flower-like turtles that climb into the land I love the landscape I see here on number two and four my first students sat next to each other side by side with handmade desks at the school I inspected you sternly and patiently though you never improved I even had you build a hospital because you always injured yourself out of carelessness you were all so excited and then you came more number eight and number sixteen I caught you throwing away building materials I howled and I forced you to work with murderous fervor but it was all for you I was building this hospital for you you learned what it meant to sweat from labor for the first time never forget the sweat and you experienced first hand what medical treatment was I changed the challenge my life experiences head on by seizing a memory wandering in the fourth dimension and produced legitimate natural medicine far surpassing anything that you might be thought possible by the amateur I was by watching me you made your own drugs and you prescribed them and you drooled from the excitement of this experience like flying for the first time and I couldn't hold back my tears when your addiction to drugs brought you down and I being an angel I evoked a typhoon and beat you down with the whips of love and desire I had to teach you symptoms from the beginning to know what pain is and each time I beat you down my heart was also pain I cut down the forest and turned it into an athletic field for you to strengthen your bodies I saw that you always came up right away I tied your ankles with ivy and threw you into the water soon you began to feed on competition many of you grew faster and used your newfound speed to seal each other's possessions that's why I had to build you a prison it was inevitable the prison is something each of you should have rooted individually in your hearts however trees were fell and prison was constructed I always saw it all what did it demand of me I accomplished more than what was thought possible every day it was very very very taxing and I was always thinking how could I ingrain the smallest amount even an ounce of what could be called knowledge into your nightmarishly wretched mind 32 do you remember and I called upon you to create a secret feel it was a clear sunny day like today and I thought I'd chosen the perfect day although there was a sudden rainstorm oh cruel god I'd chosen that day to realize my magnificent plan if you had made rain I refuse to believe in God God has nothing but a liar and the shape of a man in comparison despite my days of painstaking work I hadn't given up ceaseless thought to this genius and to beat my tears into my face I had conviction I knew what I had to do to plant wisdom in you yes it was to change your diet I would change your food and change your minds the field is the food the field is the school for food number 32 you and I committed the task of working on the feet and we delighted the idea from the others so we could surprise them with the results however number 32 you had no idea what a field was and you pissed in it I don't know whether your incontinence stemmed from fear of me or your incredible insolence but you stood in the middle of the field in the middle of the field with a creepy smile and let your urine flow you made an incomprehensible sound as you pissed silence if you cannot be silent kill me oh that's right you cannot kill me it's just like a bird he could never kill me either however number 32 you were not mistaken in the end I had to admit that your urine was good fertilizer for the people oh calm down my subjects no no the legendary number 32 is not the only one rejoice all of you who stand before me as warriors all of your urine fertilized the fields that grew our vegetables but number 32 we do nothing about food and yellow from the sea in the field and I thought I warned you against the council it's kind of as time for you to gain that ceilings and it just taken root and although one must be diligent in patrolling the fields on rainy days I find you lying in bed masturbating our crops would not grow in the third season we finally had vegetables the hardest for me when we saw that I thought I'd hardly been able to understand you for the first time since I arrived all of you until I saw the field utterly destroyed the next morning I caught you number 32 in the bathroom eating passions you stole during the night I vowed to hunt you down to the ends of the earth you looked as though I had devoured a demon you looked as though you could turn a part by one in a panic you fell into burnt pain river beyond Temprio Hill you didn't surface from the river would I ever see you again I was already beginning to get up but then what surfaced from the river was not you 32 but that creature what did you drop in the river a gold human or a silver human was it an indigenous species or a foreign one I fear you one day you might skin me auction off my hive throw my flesh into the river and use my eyeballs as jewelry you might kill and burn my family you may talk endlessly at the bottom of the river clinging to your shameful past self ignorant of language cut off my nipples and caress me smiling like a civil servant in an endless game of pretend with a wet curtain other divers might gaze on on us holding their breath grinning as you do with me whenever you wish using nonsense words flailing your arms in nonsense ways I could not understand what the age alligator was trying to say had it mistaken me for someone else nothing good comes of old age how absurd you were permitted to occupy this river by permission of me you're king you were completely unaware as you live out your whole age the 10,000 year old alligator came ashore as if it were tired of speaking it moved sluggishly its back overgrown with moss a creed in every step it took it drooled green and red the afternoon sun was red and unrelenting and that's when that guy arrived the sin of my failure is grave it took only a few days after the alligator devoured number 32 following an afternoon rain he would all gather on hermit crab beach and they were making a racket it was it's prohibited to gather and tamper with the beach distressed I made you disperse and I found a perfumed man washed up on the shore named Hockseboro Hockseboro was faced down in the sand his breath labored he too likely ended up here trying to escape that bird the depth of my compassion is deeper than the length of all the tunnels of all the world connected together I ordered Hockseboro to be taken to a hospital number 64 or someone please give him some drinking water because I know that is all he wants and do not like yourself be possessed but with that strange superstition that would allow you to take Hockseboro down to the river to be eaten by the alligator that prehistoric creature should just die the man needed swift and attentive treatment I believe that this would be the first being that would ever fully understand the depths of my heart I have the utmost affection for a man I had never seen before Hockseboro hadn't slept for three days and nights I tended to him with devotion the time Hockseboro's plum belly was a steeled sword with a floral etching his blade was so sharp that number 64 almost cut all of his fingers off of his right hand trying to steal it and then everyone feared the sword and there was no attempt to steal it again days of sleepless care continued and resulted in nothing short of tragedy and it was all due to my negligence I who hold all the power on this island I I can offer no excuses I hereby make an apology to you my subjects for the first time it is true that even I your master could not have prevented this tragedy however I proclaimed that I regret what happened upon my honor as an angel it was a sad mistake it resulted in me wanting a like-minded companion nay it was the result of Hockseboro's sad tears I never doubted that he'd been sent to me as a gift from the gods but I was sorely mistaken if only I could have changed the seas remain the greatest mystery is what happened to my fingers laden with a sense of responsibility over my useful follies after the incident I chopped off my left hand at the waist and I threw it into the ocean however after one night of shallow sleep when I woke to a nightmarish morning from my golden bed I found that I had grown a new hand strange indeed my fine, bold, new left hand fit me without any trouble and spoke to me I should tell you this as I speak before you my subjects I bear the truth as if climbing a mountain so let me tell you to your strength after I cut off my hand I entertain the idea of leaving the throne the loss of my left hand threw off the balance of the entire universe and the world would be destroyed I believed that without a doubt and yet it had grown back this body of mine and this new left hand was telling me not to give up my throne I carried the weighty responsibility of the whole world in one hand oh, per me who couldn't even brush the dust off of my shoulders what if I were to grow six or seven arms or if my left hand were to cover my mouth and suffocate me the anxiety to cover my knee at night I would desperate since that harsh landing summer day when Huxborough broke since that day which left a red painful memory we had to endure our days of suffering mathematically Huxborough seized your hearts with a skilled storytelling even through the sound of his chewing food he stroked each one of your hair blowing his rank breath on you and said what do you think lies behind the sky someday let's fly there together these were the words that seduced you to the truth I cannot hide that I was the first to fall for the words of this huxter I myself I doubt anybody can understand the sorrow of an angel that has lost his wings but I had to fly high higher than any place higher than the sky Huxborough he possessed a magnetism that nobody else had that is why as I trembled I spoke tearfully about how wonderful Huxborough was and how wonderful it is to fly those tears were real but in retrospect I despair for that moment the sky belonged to me in the first place you cannot just give anyone the privilege of flying you idiots ignorant of your own ignorance grew enamored of each other's non-existent wings and what was the result it was the very definition of worship I woke up from this dream-wide array but you, you continued to believe fought each other over wings that none of you had you came to despise the rain and chase the clouds away you shunned the very source of life the low pressure system that we once monopolized moved away to the west and east creating a typhoon and then what happened this is a perfect example of how easily you are manipulated I'm not being sardonic when I say that I learned from this experience you stupid yams knowing that you are mere apes easily swayed by fads and eloquence the worship of Huxborough you betrayers don matching sashes around your waist and went to murder a mountain and I sacked my teeth with the meat and frustration I knew I had to find out what Huxborough was using me for Huxborough became a star of this island with his genial manner a mere newcomer everyone pronounce Huxborough's name instead of readings and everyone wore the savage on this island of everlasting summer before he came here Huxborough was apparently an advisor to a miserable king on another island with his output speech and so the vengeful king bought a ship and sent him out to sea but Huxborough did not log it sea he ascended his position and his jovial manner attracted people to him and for that I was also envious what destroyed me took place on the first day of winter if there are four seasons on this island and it suggests a single bit of load of whales that were also precious food sources for you all for the rays of the sun not much different from the summer it was then that he took number 128 as his wife as you all know number 128 was a well proportioned beautiful I was really in love with her her slender flaying frame and elastic skin reflected the sun's rays and I loved the way she chirped at me that insolent man took her to be his own he took all the resources here as his own it was up to me to take number 128 and this whole island back to the way it was before take them back I took my slave number 256 to see what you were doing and what do you think that you were doing it was flabbergasted I was doing such a great shock that I lost my hearing again do you even understand what you were forced to do there what you were doing as you fawned over a hawksaburo with a sword in his side in his clumsy words you cannot even imagine I had to keep silent about it so now to try to save you from the pain now if by chance there's anyone among you who does know what hawksaburo had forced you to do without a doubt the person you must have learned the truth from number 256 who would have gone against orders to speak of it number 256 had gone against my will which is a great act of rebellion I must punish number 256 I will execute number 256 bring me fire we went to murder mountain this by hawksaburo and you gripped me hard and you saw the unbelievable cypher forest have you done we began to tremble from rage and terror and we pissed ourselves as we could not tear our eyes away from that sight my eyes have rotted from what we saw and my ears hear pellish voices I will never be able to forget what I saw have you already forgotten you who have no ability to remember in the translucent blue sky that yellow bird whose hobby it was to attack me flew about with its piercing cry that bird was deriding me with that cry it had come with warning to come and tear me apart again I cannot forget it stranger, you bird looking down at me from above you're the one who's stupid ten years had passed since hawksaburo arrived you primitive natives in circle hawksaburo and against the sugar hand field of the murder mountain you pressed your bodies together to practice some trial dance you sweated and rapped smiled and irritated rhyming in your pellets with your butts together beating the hollow logg as an instrument you made nonsense music and hawksaburo at number 128 and chips even numbered for 256 let out a high pitch cry number 256 how pathetic it is and even you joined again how dare all of you convene behind my back as I watched number 256 shake his hips the landscape pale in my eyes amidst the sugar cane leaves hawksaburo stopped the music and dancing and said that he wanted to talk and once I felt relieved and regretful and I asked him what he wanted to discuss hawksaburo said that's impossible what for I said the sugar cane here grows quickly and it's rich in sugar let's harvest it together he said and do what with it I asked our harvest together and exported and established trade with the neighboring countries he said and what does it have to do with the dance I asked I love this island and that you don't have much occasion to dance much these days but why is that let's dance once more together in a circle we can show them this valuable dance he said stop leading my subjects we haven't begun to create tradition don't interfere with things that will naturally grow outdated and go extinct don't get attached to old values they will die out on their own I am implementing a new value system so I decided to kill him number 256 really come to that sort of his so I made him cooperate by saying that he could have it and when everything I did I did for you I am responsible for not recognizing Hockseburro's joyride I had to restore everything to the straight line it had been one day once the days that we're trying to grow longer number 256 learned Hockseburro to see a rare boulder in Modesty Bay and when Hockseburro excitedly asked where the boulder was using a time-honored method we picked up random rocks and threw them threw them at him from afar and finally did it high above the bird circled high with a terrible cry most of the sun remains close what is far remains far no matter how you change your form you will be no match for me silence bird we debated who had struck Hockseburro for a failed blow and after a long and boring time we ultimately said on the fact that Hockseburro died alone and he fought back with the sword number 250 number 256 only had stones and the sun set stop chattering how many times have I had to say this haven't you had enough do you want to go back to the days when Hockseburro tricked you into believing you all could fly can you believe to be careful oh I've reached my limit you are all truly imbeciles well not to nothing every one of you with a vapid look you're worthless always seeking mistakes getting distracted nobody ever told you that before so let me tell you as a representative of everyone else that you're beyond saving you are obsessed with meaningless garbage all night you're always like that you are beyond saving you have to go to the river to spin out trivial worries and meaningless chatter you eat food as you bubble over with anxiety you fart loudly from your mouths and lie during training you lift your legs like shameless frogs you're hopeless you've been taught your worthlessness yet you remain complacent your shoes are weeds that bloom tirelessly every morning since Hockseburro died you've become restless the low pressure system you chased away to clear the clouds so you could fly created a typhoon over the seas and countless ships have come to this island to avoid it the bird cried as a blue parallel over the ships and the whales were hunted by wailing ships birds cry now what a beastly bird no way no way, that's a different sound no, it's a sound I detest of course my heart is leaking from its chest I must go I am being summoned however I will not hide for the sake of the future I must not crumble now you must stay here prepare for battle if you're gonna stop me stop me now I may never return you won't have anyone to lead you can you live with that your all-powerful king is about to leave you can you really live with that look, I've already taken a step I'm one step farther from you by of course I can survive alone it's easy for me to survive I can do it of course I can so you're sure, you're really sure I've already walked ten steps ten steps away I speak out of compassion for your sake of course I'm not disappointed alright dammit no one's gonna stop me, who cares I'm going, I've already taken 50 steps your king is getting farther away without someone to discipline you the earth will crack and you will have nothing the chaos that erupts you then will destroy you, don't come crying to me later I'll be looking down on you from high above you swatching you strangled by chaos you wretches so you won't have any regrets regret always comes too late of course I don't care I'm actually joyful at leaving this place so it's really alright then okay, alright you're not gonna miss me, even when I'm gone taking 100 steps, it's really painful it's really painful to feel left behind yeah, you're sure alright, now I'm going I'll be right back alright, your king has returned sing! now is the time to call back to storms the storms you chased away you are all truly imbeciles you won't mount to nothing every one of you with a backward look, wait, wait, hold on have I said that before? you imbeciles, with your head spinning oh, you're truly beyond saving always chasing cats wait, have I said that before? what happened, you imbeciles? the low pressure system you chased away to clear the sky created to typhoon over the seas and catfish ships have come to this island to avoid it, I've already said that memory is a living thing I only moved a little bit this time I could have been moved with more force I need more endurance perhaps a larger continental plate will help the quake we had before was much larger too bad my subject your ancestors started by the quake, clung to me for help with clumsy tears and stomp to be honest, I felt only scorn for them have you learned nothing about your infirmary education? I bestowed upon you all with my spirit they were trembling with fear even I lose my cool warriors must be prepared for anything if your king is unstable you must be strong in his stead in comparison that young jewel John was amazing he was a fisherman's son who gladly took to the seas because of the low pressure system you chased away, John's flimsy fishing boat capsized and the uncontrollable half sunk boat came to me it crashed into the clips of Moncy Bay and was destroyed John escaped ashore with his life and for a while he escaped from number 512 who hurled ruts in him out of curiosity John stole whale meat number 512 had stored in number 512 angered collected mini rocks and chased John around while John cried out for peace and this ridiculous squabbling continued nourished by the protein and iron in the whale meat John perversed the island freely and crossed Berth pain river by walking on the back of the barely living 10,100 year old alligator seeing this number 512 was enraged but he did not follow suit number 512 kneeling by the dying alligator he held its head trying to ignore its voice though he thought he was pledging allegiance to the alligator the gator did not say anything at this time if he did all he said was this my back is like my belly and my head is clinging like thunder what are you talking about you idiot this sad alligator had no offspring in sight in fact a long time ago he did have a happy family but his children had died before him and now he spends his old age alone John driven by instinct born of hunger called the alligator again and again to try to capture it but the old alligator still had legs to always skate so the despair he felt was intense John jumped onto Burd Hat Rock in Mossy Bay to eat moss and scream into the ocean spray I want to fish but I don't have a fishing pole I don't need both of these arms if I can't build a boat his cry shot straight out east following a whale to where a whaling ship was hunting it that whaling ship Tiara was drawn to John's powerful voice and approached me John the owner of such a beautiful robust voice and nearly afterwards John got sick of being sea moss lost his voice and came within an inch of his life when he was rescued by Captain Guillermo of the whaling ship I don't know much about the captain but he gave John who was half dead and Brad and John moved and perhaps back to his old social cell and worked hard to Guillermo like John hard worker than he was so he took John back to his home country sadly John was over joined to born Guillermo's ship with despair there was a silver lining to everything even coincidences can be explained if you look at the logic of the world there were two men two men who were disgusted with Guillermo's operations on the ship Cristobal and Renault newcomers to the story they were sick with the cruelty and danger of the work on the ship and asked for permission to disembark the profiles of their faces as they watched the fishing ship to yard disembark were lit by the sun in such a way that it looked like it would never set their expressions fitted between anticipation and anxiety you prepared to throw a rock set down in alarm but they offered you turtle shrimp and sardine prepared with new technology that we were all shocked by the enchanting flavors their friendliness drew us out compelled by their affable smiles and the rarity of their presence everyone on the island decided to learn their language so they could greet them in this wide universe in which innumerable stars live and die over spans of time these two were extremely knowledge they had left their homes behind and were traveling the world at times riding whaling ships and living as they liked Cristobal was the son of Dominica Bartholomew was the son of Bartholomew Bartholomew was the son of Diego Diego could move the stars and change the seasons as he wished Ronaldo was from the continent but his mother was from one of our islands and he spoke passionately of wanting to explore his roots to see the land where he came from well Cristobal, if he had something on his mind finished off the moonshine he bootleg from the whaling ship we all thought that was a bit odd Cristobal and Ronaldo talked to us about an area around our ocean when we were about to see the small hybrid boat bobbing with white waves against the sunset so gorgeous that made you want to stab someone a million sun rays shown on our backs I learned all about myself we were positioned one day away from the continent when traveling at 20 knots an hour two islands to the north and three islands to the west complete this archipelago and this island at the center is the only one with fresh water there have been many animals and plant life that understood human language but now most of them were nearly extinct number 1024 tried to make trees and animals nearly talk to him but he lost his patience when they didn't respond so he jumped into the night sea and swam so vigorously that he hid his pinkie on the ocean floor interesting Cristobal and Ronaldo taught us an unumerable variety of things after we collected all the information we thought we needed from them we first smoked Ronaldo to preserve him and minced Cristobal and alien we prepared what remained the way that you prepare a whale meat but boiling the flesh in order to draw out the back and then we sold them to other civilized people who had come in multitudes to our island and we traded them for modern amenities like soap and toothpaste while new people came and walked freely on our shores in our shoes we rekindled our bonfires and enjoyed them for a while and I found it easy seeing your smiling faces for the first time in a while fire has a mysterious power to calm our hearts throughout the ages in the dark I pictured each one of your faces I heard only your breath and that wind back then and in a moment several years passed in the bay where I prepared the beach after last earthquake a plume of black smoke rose and several explosions burst and the yellow bird cried louder that it had never cried before but that cry was being less and then after a while three men named Townsend and Shang-Wen came ashore in the space of our island I cannot forget the day that I had an audience with them they came to visit me who is the great king and who squinted in the presence of my brilliant dignity and they bowed deeply as someone revered around the world and then after some religious or customary gestures which I did not understand they spoke by the way John translated Townsend's language A into Cristobal and Reynald's language B and number 2048 he would accept no persistence and hunger for knowledge of Cristobal and Reynald's language B translated into my language C what Townsend said was and then John translated that into Cristobal and Reynald's language B although perplexed number 2048 told me what they had said and so I answered I see it must have been difficult to travel across the seas just to see me in the flesh do you have a place to sleep if you like my people will prepare such a place at incredible speed so you may enjoy your stay here comfortably for a while however though I'm sure you already are aware you must not deceive or otherwise behave strangely to vets me the king don't think you can fool my angel eyes I give this warning from my compassionate heart so make sure you receive it with gratitude number 2048 cannot translate this it does his best gesturing wildly John nods silently Townsend seemed satisfied with the kind reception that would have made a shrimp claw and continues how long have you been living in this island for John translates that into Cristobal and Reynald's language how long have you been living here number 2848 speaks to me on the verge of tears of course I have the final say but I will give you a satisfied feast to keep your bellies here and the rain away unfortunately we have no one here who could be called the chefs we used to have excellent chefs but no longer instead we could share with you some fine smoke me and to be safe that it depends on your attitude however being a miser does nothing I insist we will share it with you number 2048 slices serve the smoked Reynald number 2048 cannot translate this that way he presents John with the smoke John grins and bites into the meat Townsend continues how many people are living here and where are you from John translates number 2048 is stoned still we are prepared to give you the nationality of our country if you wish we know that you have been living in this island for a long time and we shall see to it that you can continue to live the same way we know that you live in this island for a long time we will let you live in the same way as now in none of this nonsense are you referring to our oil I can share our smoked meats with you we know that you have been living in this island for a long time I can share our smoked meats with you but the oil belongs to me it's a crucial resource for foreign exchange at a time when the number of residents is growing and I don't intend to have that politically delicate conversation with the likes of you I would be willing to sell you oil in the amount that you need I would consider that but that would only be what I want I have decided an hysteric match between Townsend and number 2048 his shoulders droop and his sides Townsend accepts my challenge quickly with a dubious face Zhang Weng never opened his mouth and John who made him the same guy who fought the 10,150 year old alligator he just bit into an apple and red what is wrong with this guy Townsend did not make any offerings to me instead he took the green john and the silent Zhang Weng and returned to his ship the three of them seemed to have grown attached to the island because they did not seem like they had any intention of leaving one after another people from their three mother countries arrived on our island in droves and settled they built houses large and small soup shops and disgusting shops where customers sit defenseless as a stranger cuts their hair from behind the bravest of us number 2096 he went into that shop and came screaming out five minutes later but then he whistled not too long however all of the others were overcome by their fears and offered meaningless prayers to me I wanted to engage in the activity of cutting my hair and I realize now that was my first moment of jealousy I didn't know whether it was yesterday or last year but on a half moon day when that yellow bird flew away into the blue cloud I learned from reading the writer that they brought that jealousy destroys lives my subjects jealousy is a terrible snake that can make you suffocate those you love so keep your distance from it and if you think you might fall prey to jealous behavior train your muscles on the daily battle our battle is not yet ending we must never let our guard down doesn't anybody remember the tragedy of number 8192 you're in very pains how can you live without knowing this despair I feel is how I feel if my hard-earned hat were used as a garbage can in the year of unusually cold winds fresh in my memory a shining black insect-black battleship appeared in the bed and a swarm of soldiers came ashore wielding sticks they selected the strongest of our islanders folded them into the army and surprisingly number 8192 they would never like conflict and always sat quietly in the corner joined their ranks fearlessly they burned down our forest they turned our athletic field into an airstrip and landed flyer planes that flew faster than the ill bird and let out grand farts every time I heard that noise that joke is that somebody were beating my head out of slumber and when my back began to itch it was a kind of ecstasy I reveled in the weight of the new construction I never felt before or oil did not sell anyway our new buildings were built and all your homes were torn down anyone who joined the army was forced to evacuate inland and so most of you got me at the time my feelings were very conflicted simply put conflicted but of course I who am the most diligent of all in the universe was also making discoveries my subjects place your hands on your hearts now revel in the fact that you were able to meet me your fearless king an agent of the heavens if you didn't have me your existence would be nonexistent and remind yourself never to repeat that immeasurable solitude that resulted from you leaving my side I'll be a temporarily I am your mother your father your oldest brother and your youngest brother God repeat my words I am your mother your father your father your oldest brother your oldest brother and your youngest brother after everyone left I focused my awareness on my ears in meditation quietly by myself every type of war machine came to bother me from all directions and white black and red and yellow brown people arrived and they fought and burned and ate each other over and over and over there are so many explosions that many of my ears were destroyed I smelled only gunpowder my skin peeled countless people died in number 8192 cried in despair as he jumped into the sea and yet I did not lose my spirit and I accepted everything as it came my spirit may be the foundation to the stability I have reached several airplanes fell into what remained of the forest and plumes of smoke rose up the top of murder mountain was flattened and hermit crab beach was littered with corpses and many birds left I looked at my belly and my arms reflected in the mirror of the ocean and was surprised at how much I had changed but I discovered a strange buoyancy and pleasure as well on a sunny day the bird spoke to me from the white sky with its cursed voice and I decided to ignore it if you have some water some water can I drink I'm thirsty thirst overcomes me though I am an angel my feet are bound by invisible chains I cannot use my wings to get away from you I cannot fly in search of water that yellow bird was not joking man's war had driven it bad and it had forgotten how to take care of itself I didn't even glance at the bird but instead I focused on my body where I was and how I had changed I observed every corner and rejoiced in my daily discoveries of my new self after a brief peaceful uninhabited period a horn from the big nation came ashore and I jumped to reach them with my newly transformed self but I could hardly understand their language but the newcomer often begins two bulldozers two stripper dozers two excavators two wheel loaders two crawler cranes two forklifts an area work platform a vacuum truck a road roller a mud mixer and an asphalt fixer I accepted them without errors it's easy to see the prosperity of the big nation in just any one of these games it is best to defer to the powerful to learn from their knowledge and strategies and methods of distress I thought this he he he he and I burst into laughter my subjects the people of this new nation have a method called landfill and though and through this they've expanded my surface area so my transformation has surpassed that of a king I greet this new physical formation with ease and I keep changing every day and I learn the pleasurable sensation of my heart being warmed libraries that can store vast quantities of books and towers reaching the sun were built, innumerable people populated me this island and a hermit crab beach though that name is no longer used and when people began to sear their skins on the beach or hide themselves in the jungle you returned masses of nuclear submarines and cruise ships and yachts came the airport equipped with modern communication devices welcome passenger flights and helicopters everyone dove into the sea as if probing my belly digging big holes and shouting naked you must remember well those nameless people who came to your sumless villages to hire you to resurrect and harvest the sugarcane fields you sweated under their management to harvest all that sugarcane apparently they needed it to provide biomass at the north it was the rumor by number 16384 who'd learned the language eagerly now there are other trees and flowers unique to this island that have grown countless scientists to sniff around it's ticklish I can't even stand it now they will probably surround me and a lot of different people with louder voices will come here I was the chosen one however it has become too lively and I do think it's bothered someone but I will keep that a secret I will only share my thoughts with you my subjects rejoice in order to protect the production of biomass at the north of biomass at the north the scientists have insisted that they must bring giant fearsome frogs to eat the pests that are decimating the sugarcane fields a plan that was approved at a meeting in which I had no say the frogs were brought from the continent and they bred prolifically in an instant and by the same fate that I was carried by the water and wind when I was at sea they were poisonous the frogs took over the asphalt built by towns and the neighborhoods that were built on what used to be our fields and they cry out to their hearts content night after night my subjects I cannot trust my memory but as your all powerful king I want to show you the way into the future if you can do this kill the poisonous frogs they exert no effort they live however they want they sleep in shit as they like my tolerance is as deep as the sea but these creatures I cannot accept soldiers are you ready you must destroy every single one of them raise your voices get off your butts and take a stance you ate vegetables and prepared your digestive systems for this very moment all the taxes you paid were invented for this purpose I do not want them to leave a mark on my history they have not given an ounce of sweat they drink what they want shut the doors I want some of you who survive on the allowance of your children send home from the continent or others who are against their will dig in the dirt dig part of me wasting an entire day looking for a potato and yet others went naively out of the continent without even knowing how to buy a ticket and committed suicide out of homesickness our native language has changed and I know you have suffered that aged alligator has not been seen since nobody remains to speak my language no one to voice complaints you might disappear soon that bird that bird that attacked me relentlessly ate a poison frog and died I did not know that that bird which ruled the sky modally with his terrible wings held profound meaning for each and every one of you that bird danced in the blue sky protected this island it was your angel the king of the sky your god earth bound I might have envied that bird I can only wait for the shifting tectonic plates let us at least avenge that bird my eternal rival my subjects you are as good as God many people will likely demand what is mine but I will only continue to transform into myself but for what did I ever have the desire to change you do not know how to proceed but don't worry if you die I will collect your bones to be exact I will absorb you into myself so kill as many as you can before you die I am soldiers be brave and go forth hello thank you so much well first of all thank you so much for your wonderful performance again spectacular and thank you all for being here thank you for staying and I would like to start asking you a question you die and my first question is how do you feel watching your play in English and how is that experience for you different from seeing your play in another language yeah hello I am Yude Kamisato first of all I want to thank Tony and Sarah for your great job and Frank and all the staff I wanted to invite me I am very honored to be here to talk with your audience and then I speak in Japanese I wrote this play in 2015 I directed that production myself and for that production I was not able to have it performed by a single actor so I put it on with five actors and I took the text and I split it amongst the five performers so my first reaction is just such a gratitude and joy in having one performer take on all the text and I actually think that this particular piece is really well suited for translation meaning there are some things I think that play better in English like the humor of it and the power of it that doesn't come through in any way but I think it is a great experience that doesn't come through in the same way in the Japanese actually I mean I'm not sure how it lands in the English but in the Japanese there's a a sense of it feeling a little bit like old not dated but it feels a little bit like a little bit distant like formal thank you so much for your answer so Tony I wanted to ask you how you have engaged with a character that has so many dimensions that it's hard to understand whether it's a person or if it's the island itself talking or if it's a character that leaves across centuries and has so many dimensions and how has it been for you the process of engaging with all those different layers well you know there's a line where I say I will tell you the truth like climbing a mountain and engaging with a text like this is like climbing a mountain camp and like holy this is a big mountain to climb so it's really the sort of thing where you can only really tackle such a huge thing step by step so we just went through it moment by moment and tried to construct it out of the details and I'm the one fortune thing I think I have as an actor is I don't have an imagination that says wait a second I'm a dictator and I'm also an island that makes no sense to me really I mean everything makes sense to me I don't have so I the one thing I think I do have was that I'd never said well this is absurd this makes no sense I just try to commit to everything purely as it happened and if you follow the logic of the piece it's perfectly understandable how he could be speaking as an individual and as an an object at the same time thank you so much so Sarah, Sarah Hughes the director of the reading thank you so much for your work great job and I was going to ask you something similar considering the richness of the metaphors and the historical references that come in so many directions in the play and also because it comes from a different culture how do you engage with all those those metaphors but as well with the cultural translation perhaps we met a number of times and like Tony said it was about trying to pay attention to the details and kind of score out this mountain of text into the little ways that we could ground it and kind of help the audience find their footing and I think that sometimes the metaphors serve that and then sometimes we would try to find something more literal or tangible so that a metaphor could actually be heard that you could hear how poetic and beautiful description of the landscape was but you can only do that when you have something to kind of look at in that moment that was kind of where we came to really trying to engage directly with different audience members and also with the stupid little toys because it just gives you some little shape to hold on to for a moment so the descriptions can kind of flow out of that and then I also asked Aya a lot of questions about which metaphors might be calling up a more familiar Japanese idiom that I might not know and which ones were just a sort of beautiful and strange and lovely description so they were very helpful with that too Thank you so much I actually wanted to ask you Aya a question as well and I think you already started answering this with the difference in the way humor works in English and in Japanese but I was going to ask you about your translation process as well and the difficulties you might have encountered and how you feel as well about the way the humor is different in the language in Japanese and in English That's a difficult question for me to answer right at this moment my brain is a little bit in translator mode which means I'm trying to be blank but that's really also the way I approach texts which is blank Lee of course he's there's a conversation here and I approach him with questions he also sends me a video of his work but oftentimes the videos give me a general sense but I don't I actually just go off the page really and what I know and the relationship that we have built and what I know of him and what I know of his body of work I allow that to inform me I found the humor in the Japanese very much as present but I also think that his work landing with a Japanese audience is different from his work landing with an American audience yeah so um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um So yes, I also think that there's a difference between the audiences in Japan and in the U.S., but for this particular piece I feel like one of the difficult things in terms of translation was that I wrote this in Japanese deliberately without using pronouns so that it's deliberately unclear who the speaker is until the very end. So using that aspect of Japanese where you don't have to specify who the speaker is or the pronoun that kind of opens up to interpretation, well is it a human, is it a dictator, is it an island to create a deliberately blurry line there, which obviously an English subject verb object has to be clear. So moving forward I would like to be more mindful that I'm thinking about the translation at the beginning of the writing process, knowing that I can't use, I can't depend on that aspect of Japanese syntax. Thank you. Of course it creates an interesting texture even in the translation because even using those subjects as you did in the translation, you still, an ambiguity does come across. So it's an interesting thing, right? A slipperiness, you know. Tony, I wanted to, as you were building your character and your dictator who self-identifies as an angel and then as a king and it's an impossible combination of narcissistic and emotional and tyrannical and abusive and I was wondering if there... Yeah, I know nobody like that right now. There's nobody in our public life who's anywhere similar to that. There's no incredibly narcissistic person who's powerful and delusional that we are all aware of. I can't even begin to think you might be referring to. Yeah, I was going to ask if there were some inspiration anywhere in reality or if you had any reference. Well, because of my personal feelings about the person in question I couldn't base my characterization on him because then I wouldn't be able to invest in personal identification. But it's great actually. It may be a problem for the world at large but it's fantastic and fascinating to have and it's not just the person who you might be thinking I'm referring to. I mean, we're right now worldwide we're seeing a great renaissance of the autocrat. So there are many, many examples of this sort of megalomaniacal person in constant fugue state actually running countries. So I had an embarrassment of riches to reach into. Absolutely. Well, you did a great job and it was... The only thing to really identify yourself positively with these people is you just think of them as children. You think of them as wayward, spoiled, awful children. And that kind of was a nice thing. Sarah brought in these toys and that really helped me because I was able to project these horrible things onto the idea of just like a little boy stuck in a room who might be in really, really difficult circumstances, who is working out their problems from destroying and killing toys. So that playfulness was a real helpful key to the stuff we worked on together. And there was certainly empathy from us, I think, because you really got to that tenderness. Yeah, thank you. And we have Peter Ekersel with us. He's a professor in the department of theater. And I wanted to know if you could maybe... If you could tell us how you position this play within a larger context of contemporary playwriting in Japan. That's an easy question. That's a very difficult question to answer in a very short amount of time. I was just remembering that earlier in the year we had a visit from a very well-known professor from Japan named Professor Uchano Tadashi who gave a lecture here using the work of a Japanese philosopher named Azuma Hiroki. And his lecture was on the philosophy of the tourist and the idea of, of course, Japanese people are famous for being tourists, but also colonialism is a kind of tourism in a certain kind of maniacal kind of obsession or fascistic kind of way. And he talked about your play actually in this lecture quite a lot. And so I was thinking, remembering the lecture and talking about this perspective and listening to the play. Because the play is also a kind of tourism of singular totalitarian characters. And there's a lot of reference, or possible references, not just to kind of living fuckwits, but to historical figures or literary figures. I was thinking of Ubu, for example, was an obvious one. But also at a certain point I started thinking about, not a, not a totalitarian figure, but the character of Krap in Krap's Last Take because there's this sort of kind of beckety and sort of obsession or loss in the, in the past and this blurring of fictional realities and historical realities. And so there's a kind of tourism through certain frameworks or, or kind of narratives within theatre. And of course there's a mixture of real characters and events. And I presume Townsend tells in Harris the first, the first American consul general to Japan after the, after the opening up of, quote unquote, opening up of Japan to the west in the major restoration. And so there's various other historical references that were really resonating for me. And I was also thinking a little bit about Okinawa and the status that Okinawa has in, in the Japanese landscape and the fact that that used to be a kingdom. And so there were many references. I know I'm not answering your question, but in, I am to the extent that it's rare that you have a Japanese play that is so, I guess, interested in this kind of rich intertextuality that is not just a, there's a lot of Japanese intertextuality in other plays. My dear friend Kamuro Takeshi has intertextuality in that he always references popular culture. But it's rare for somebody to reference a whole kind of history of theatre, I think, in subtle ways. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So before we open to the public, just one last question. Because Sarah, I know that you directed another one of you guys play Abia 51, sorry, 51. Yes, for the Penn Voices Festival here a couple of years back. So if you could just tell us a little bit about that experience and just working together again. Yeah. I guess something that struck me about both of those, both that play and this play is, you know, like I said at the beginning, this interest in sort of nationhood and what it means to be a citizen and what it means to sort of have ownership over that. But then also formally with these two plays and one other play from a playwright who's very different, but also contemporary Japanese writer, just this willingness to embrace the use of a lot of text, a mountain of text, and really trusting the audience to be able to kind of hang on to the threads that are being put forth and follow them, which I just have found really thrilling and is something that I think sometimes with contemporary American writing, I feel like there's less of a trust in the audience to kind of be able to track a very complex, dense and discursive piece of writing. So that has been thrilling. I mean, there were some shared themes between this play and Abia 51, San Borja, but yeah, I sort of talked about those already. Thank you. Thank you so much. So we're going to open it to the audience. If anybody has questions, please speak to the mic. Sure. Were there references to Japanese legends or mythologies? And the second question is regarding not using the pronouns and at the end revealing who the character is. In the play we heard just now, was that at the very end, the bit where I am, I am, I am and Tony's out in the middle of the floor and reciting the different things he is? Was that the part in the play where in Japanese it's revealed who the character is? Yes. Thank you. So in answer to your first question, I was very much influenced by a manga, a comic book that was very popular in Japan before World War II. So it was a super popular manga series about a young boy who grew up in a boat, falls asleep and drifts and lands in some island in the south and their share of the land is a huge amount of money. So it was a super popular manga series about a young boy who goes out fishing in a boat, falls asleep and drifts and lands in some island in the south and their share what he knows of the brilliance and abundance of Japanese civilization to the savage natives of the island and numbers them and so on and so forth. And another thing was, I was very much influenced by, there is an island called Ogasawara and it has a very troubled or very tumultuous history in terms of language and also the thing about the poisonous frogs invading and overtaking the island that was actually to place there. So I was pulling from stories like that as well. So there is the manga and also my research on Ogasawara Island and also just a lot of the episodes and stories that remain from the pre-World War II Japan, Japanese Empire trying to extend its colonial reach towards the southern islands that I was picking up from. And I just, even though all of these influences that I just talked about were from pre-World War II, I felt like there's actually a lot of resonance to what's happening in the world right now. So it was an effort on my part to kind of reflect that part of history and although it might feel somewhat biased or there's a lot of prejudice ingrained in those stories but I'm feeling the need to revisit them. And in answer to your second question, it's when the protagonist first mentions the tectonic plate, maybe if it had been a larger tectonic plate, that's a hint of it. But after the bird dies and he talks about the bird as my greatest rival and that the bird was actually the angel, that is where in the Japanese text it becomes really clear. We have an online question from Vince Hancock in Kansas. We have lots of people watching and actually sending us questions. So Vince is asking, what keeps the character from being just a bully, just a pure bully, what keeps it from just being a bully? He seems to be reflecting, so it's not a fully just, you know, an honest only. I think it's something about the way in which these figures can also have a certain kind of charming, they can have charisma, they can be very entertaining. But also, I mean, because it's a solo piece, he's kind of separated from his actions. Like for example, if I was really a dictator, if I was really speaking to soldiers and you could see them go out and kill people. I mean, I talk about all this stuff but because of the universe of the play, especially because of the sort of context that Sarah set up with the toys and the sense of play, you know, he's not only a bully because maybe he's a child pretending to be a bully but it's just like a figure of the imagination. I mean, it just seems to me that it got out the central childlike nature inside bullies. So he's more than a bully because he's revealed to be just sort of a consciousness in turmoil. So that's kind of the way I approach it. Yeah, I mean, not to make any excuses for any actual bullies in the world at large but I guess in the context of this play, the protagonist being both this dictator and also the island. I mean, the island is ravaged at a number of times during the play, like environmentally damaged, you know, or things happen to the island that are beyond, that are outside the island's control that maybe are like ticklish at moments but are perhaps also scary. So just the slippage between those two things in the context of this play makes a lot of sense to me, again, not to say that real bullies have an excuse like being an island to lean on. Also, maybe over the videotape he wasn't able to be close enough to just understand my personal charm and warmth. Thank you. So we are almost out of time so we can only take one more question. Thank you, Mona. Well, hello, you die. Welcome to New York. And thank you Peter for bringing up the, like a tourist perspective from the play because that's what, I get the same feelings from the play. It's not actually about the tourist but also strangers and in the same time, sometimes also foreigners because it also, I was hosting a plus 51 of the Ozone Sang Burja when it was performed in my city. So the same place, both of those plays really refers to someone like strangers as also foreigners in terms of, you know, encounter with natives and that kind of encounter become really complicated and sophisticated philosophically and also in terms of cultural background, something like that. And as we know, you guys also grew up in Peru. So this kind of, you know, and this kind of, you know, double consciousness between like Peru or Tokyo is also quite an interesting and captivating part of the way we see the play in different perspective as a tourist, stranger or foreigners. But one thing that I want to ask to you guys is the way it's captivated through numbers because the way he put a lot of numbers in display and also plus 51 of the Ozone Sang Burja as well. So could you please like say something? Is that something that is numbers in the play, play important things? Thank you. Was that true in Sang Burja? Plus 51. In the title? That's of your great mind, Peru, right? That's true. In the play, it starts slowly at first so the flow of time and the speed of change are the same. At first, there are not many numbers but I think that's the history of the play and that's why I chose the play. So for this particular piece, yes, numbers did have quite a significance in terms of the way the play builds upon itself. At first, the numbers start small in single digits and they grow in smaller increments but as the play goes on, they begin to jump quite far and we get into four-digit numbers. So I feel like that's the way I wanted to show the span of time and the span of change but I also feel like the increasing velocity of the numbers and the way they grow and jump is also reflective of how we perceive history as well. So the intention is for as we approach the end of the play that it goes out, gets out of control and kind of heads into a chaotic kind of chaos and everything falling apart. So for me, in writing this play, I went through the process from the beginning to the end without being able to find much hope in the piece and I finished it. Thank you so much everyone for coming out. Thank you so much for the performance. I just wanted to say one more thing which is to credit the two voice-over actors, Sybil Kempzen and Josefine Skaro who we just didn't get a chance to put them in the program but yeah, Towson and the other one. Oh yeah, that's right, the translator. 2048. 4028. Towson and Sam. Thank you again.