 in this academic and theater and the place where they both meet. You've got the audience and the process and the stories that lack. The actual practice is the start of the practice. Examples of women sharing what it is they need to do, sharing how you do that. There's no way you can ignore that from us anymore. Come on, come on. Which time is it now? It started out about different people and about different things. A whole sea of phenomenon. The year for everybody. Yes, everybody. That's it for today. I can do my understanding of why relationships are very, very different. Everybody here, the Modney's Theater Center. And thank you for watching the clip. This is the first time we showed it. And so I'm thinking, communicate hopefully a little bit. What we do, my name is Frank Hanschger. I'm the executive director and director of programs. Founder of the festival here. Together with Antje Ödel, who's my co-director of programs. He's also a co-curator. And this is a wonderful moment for us because it is the official opening of the Pinball Voices Playwrights Festival. And it's a great, great honor for us to participate in this most significant festival. It was created by Paul Oster and Salman Rushdie at the time of the Bush government or the Bush regime, as some say, and I would agree. And when they thought there was a tunnel vision, about over 95, 96% of all books printed were American writers and all the very low percentage that was left was half, but it was German or French because they supported it. So there was not enough voices from around the world. I mean, need them, they are important. In the music world, everybody knows that a great musician listens to world music. And in theater, we all have to listen more. And everybody, but especially also New York, even so it is such a great cosmopolitan city. A little bit is missing, but it also is a city that, as it shows with you all coming here, it is really interesting. So thank you, thank you all for coming. We have some of the playwrights already here. Eva is from Croatia, who is here. Laura from the South, maybe your way from South Africa. And with us also is you died, the writer of the playwright now from Japan. And they all flew in just for this festival. And again, it's a great, great honor. And we would like to thank the Japan Foundation also for their support. And Miki Hata is here with us. So thank you for making this extra veganza happen. Thank you very much. And I, a few words of the Secret Center at British Academia and Professional Theater, International American Theater. So this festival really is at the center of what we do. Normally the speech is a little bit shorter, but it is the beginning of the festival. And if you have a cell phone, just take it out for one moment and see if it's sound off. Now I'm going to do the same. And the formula is there will be the play reading followed by a discussion here. And now I would like to welcome a member of the Penn Trust Board, who took her time to come to us and also say a few words on behalf of the Penn World Voices and the Penn International Play Festival, Elidabeth Hummerdinger, who also is a writer. Pasta Elidabeth, thank you so much for coming. And also, again, it's a great, great honor. This is the greatest festival I've seen in the city of New York and for us to be part of it for over 10 years. And which now became the most significant music festival for playwrights from global reach in the U.S., perhaps even all the Americas. So it's a great, great honor. And I'm so glad that we continued to work with you here. We agree with you. Thank you. We'll be recording it, so that's how you do it. Well, thank you. So for the recording, hello, welcome to New York for you who've just flown in and welcome here to those of you who live in New York. My name is Elidabeth Hummerdinger. I'm here as a trustee of Penn America. I'm also a playwright, so it's a particular honor to be connected to this part of the festival. On behalf of the 4,400 writers, translators, and editors of Penn, it's our great pleasure to welcome you to your 12th annual, did you say 10th? Yeah, we were part of it for 10th, but it isn't just 10th. Okay, so we're at our 12th annual festival, World Voices Festival of International Literature. We tend just a little about Penn because we're very proud of what we've been thinking about. We're an organization that stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression at home and abroad. We champion the freedom to write, recognize the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Penn and America is the largest branch of the global organization, Penn International, of writers active in more than 100 countries. We work on behalf of jailed and threatened writers, fighting against surveillance, and put on provocative literary programming. So they'd ask me to just say a little bit about my own connection, my own feelings about it. I'd love to be involved in an organization that identifies itself as provocative. And I'm so happy to identify myself with Penn's mission and its membership. As a writer, I came up with nouns where reporters and entertainers were warriors, they were connectors, and were commoners. And I'd like to thank the sponsors, supporters, and volunteers to make the Penn World Voices Festival possible. And thank you for being part of our audience. For more information about Penn America and details on other festival events, visit pen.org. There's lots going on all over the world. Or visit the information table outside to learn about becoming a member today and receive a discount when you join in person. We welcome your membership. We're expanding our reach and activities and we love you to be part of it, so please sign up for our newsletter at the very least. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. We try to be provocative and outspoken. I'd also like to take a moment to draw your attention to our exceptional closing event for the festival this year. We're delighted and honored to have the author of An Untamed State and Bad Feminist. That's the title of the book, not the author's name. Roxanne Gaye will be delivering the Arthur Miller Freedom to Right lecture on Sunday, May 1st at 6 p.m. at the Cooper Union. And it's a wonderful venue. If you haven't been, it's just worth the journey and then to hear Roxanne will be famous. As a cultural critic and social media powerhouse, Roxanne writes with prodigious bravery about gender, sexuality, and race. Following the lecture, she will be in conversation with poet Saeed Jones, BuzzFeed's executive cultural editor. We hope to see you there. Again, thank you for coming today. Thank you to our guests for agreeing to take part in what I'm sure will be a wonderful event and break a leg. But I don't remember the cold must mean it happened before it got cold. It was noisy, really noisy. It still rings in my ears. They hadn't yet announced the Olympics, but the streets were already carnival-less like spinning cog wheels, eating and raging, drinking and vomiting every day. The commuter trains were generating power themselves, digging through the underground, lighting new bombs. The din was enough. By then the city was barely holding on, almost having absorbed as much noise as it possibly could. And in a building that I did not build, that felt sterile, I slept as I bathed in the sunlight. As I recall, I was alone. Perhaps I'd been awakened by my own snores. But I felt as if someone had shaken my shoulder. I awoke. And then I saw that I was in a room in the terribly stained building where there once was a kimono shop in Chuoku, in Tokyo. And in this room there was fresh evidence that the carelessly placed mattress had been dusted off. My drool had left a yellow stain in which stank, so I felt as if I was looking at my own stupid sleeping face. There was no music playing in my mind. It felt terribly empty. And then only silence. Silence is not the incidental gap between words. They say it possesses a force against words. The elderly man stands, his left hand nestled in his pocket as if guarding his words against silence. He has trouble bending his right leg. The steam from the residual heat of silence is spit out of his palm when he opens and closes his right hand. The rising white steam smooths out the wrinkles on his face, giving a glimpse of his former youth on the other side of silence. What's the use of indulging this silence, I think? And get up. And I'm bewildered to find a man who is the father of Mexican theater standing right next to me. Hello. I accept the fact that he is the father of Mexican theater. The fact that he is the father of Mexican theater makes whether or not this makes sense to me meaningless. He is who he is, that's right. I thought I would speak to this Mexican. I can't think of what to talk about. I don't know whether since he is a theater person I should talk to him about theater or I should talk about the weather first, if someone would serve tea and cake to a guest first or perhaps I should introduce myself. I am actually also involved in theater. I am ostensibly a theater director so that would make me a pretty low bottom-of-the-rung existence next to yours. But to begin with, you seem to be Japanese or Chinese, but to begin with, are you in my dream? That's what's going around and around in my mind but if you are an apparition or a ghost of some kind you'd probably be able to hear what I'm thinking without my having to articulate it. Right that was what was going around and around in my mind. How do you think about theater? Was his sudden question and it seemed he couldn't speak Japanese with facility and since I don't understand Spanish he spoke to me in English. How do you think about theater? Well I don't really care about theater. I can understand what's being said in Japanese but it's been a while since I had to speak it so the words don't come easily. The Mexican said something like this and he stuck out his tongue. From the late Taisho period to the early Shaw period I was in Tokyo back when they were starting to construct the winding sewers and water through dirty as it traveled down its pathway. In Tokyo the earth shook. All buildings were destroyed. On the one hand there was revolution in Germany and Russia and I wasn't a panic about that. However I did not even have an ounce of intention to flirt with aging theater folk rather for the poverty stricken masses I went to exercise my right in the general election along with the rice farmers and laborers packed into suitcases. I believe that the morning as the tomb was rising inwardly and we fought for those politics those ideals for that society that stank like piss for that economy that was like that was like sleep in your eye and snot in your nose As we cooked sardines over a flame we were destroying the world created for the privilege to leave behind some shred of hope that would at least be better than shit for the next generation of bastards. That was the spirit with which I lived for theater. However this young man who fancies himself a theater director asked Mr. Sonner when you lived in Tokyo how long did it take for the train on the Yamanote line to complete a circle and what time was the last train? Like a reporter for a magazine he repeatedly asks about the train it's nice that he had some interest and of course there were times when I rode the train however, what about theater? Throughout theater, through theater I would gaze at society with its exposed nipples attacking the wailing politicians with my girlish passion for revolution if I didn't do that who would be the point of making village plays for theater's sake? Ride the train or take a picture of the train and grin what would that accomplish? At least once I'd rather bring home a young man from the shabby next door apartment who looked like he might hang himself any day and share a pot of warm stew with him or drop that pot so it shatters so I could give some work I'd rather make theater that match these priceless priceless social contributions and feel good about myself because then I would know how the needle and thread work underneath a fabric of society tear down the government rob money from the rich leftist theater is rising long live the proletariat the Mexican was so excessively passionate that he was unintelligible it was as if someone had handed me a heavy off-season blanket he spoke heatedly at times dragging his foot while imitating an actor meanwhile I felt like I was sleep talking but I am also a bit of a theater director myself involved in this charade of performance nobody cares about the left or proletariat art in this day and age all they care about is themselves and their petty little worries facades of love and empty catastrophes there may be one small faction of self-professed intellectuals who complain about the government online but the theater has completely lost its significance listen to me time goes around and around and now is the time for you to speak out for the labelers tear down the government focus your youth and your passion abandon catastrophe and throw yourself into the internet we need theater to do what's worth theater doesn't speak for anyone and can't bring down the government youth is useless and passion is scoffed at and nobody believes there's a shot of truth online now is the time for the voice of the labelers to focus its youth and its passion abandon catastrophe and throw itself into the internet we need theater come on say it now is the time for the labelers to take their youth and passion to the internet I'm not an actor when jabberings take a pause between breaths connect the flow boards together okay hurry up now is the time and the labelers always have their youth sucked dry by the internet those are the lines I don't care anymore being insolent and shameless I just want to sleep I want to end my days in slumber I want to stop this thinking game and stay asleep I don't want to think about society I want to float to the surface of the world and for my flimsy life to melt away in a bland soup as if he read my mind the theater mexican clammed up irritated and dragging the left leg he couldn't bend he runs around glittering like dust stirred up into the sunlight and he shouts my brain cells are being scratched by the sharp claws of political purveyors he cries the cry of an exile like a lab rat if mexico is like a child to he who is the father of mexican theater his home country of japan must be like his mother edifice abhorred by his mother their relationship never restored with the resilience of a rat he groaned nonsense exhausted afterwards his body fell calm and he told me the story of how he retreated from the front lines of the left wing theater movement because of the detectives from the police department's rat control office and traveled off to Berlin and then russia with the help of his parents with the help of money in the new world he became an assistant to the director myerholt who would be crushed to breadcrumbs his stories from that time were so spicy i almost fainted the conflicting theater theories of great director stanislavsky and myerholt the miraculous fusion of the two legendary men flaunting their genitalia to each other as old men these were the stories i had to listen to as it coincided in eternal fire what kind of theater was this stanislavsky a style of skiing when i gingerly tried to make a joke seki-san of the formerly japanese theater person who had been forced by circumstances to establish his artistic home in mexico made a withered expression like the end of the world and with a lopsided skip he disappeared as i watched him walk away his back seemed to say holy life for mcstefson go to russia in his climate of rapidly deteriorating u.s. russian relations which would you choose i longed for the sun so i decided to go to okinawa one i headed from narita to okinawa it was december i went to naha by myself i didn't need a coat in naha in early december the airport was crowded with american military planes that were taking off and landing the escalator leading to the airport monorail was overrun with christmas decorations well it's a lot of season okinawa is always summer what an arrogant misconception but it's true okinawa should always be summer and there should be no christmas in the summer time in the northern hemisphere berlin was probably cold moscow even colder tokyo was also cold in naha i just needed a light jacket i wanted dinner so i walked to the international street but i couldn't find a restaurant everything looked like a tourist spot in the hotel alone i drank aomori and got wasted i turned the tv on and there was news that the special secrecy law had passed in the upper house i was pretty drunk yes drowsy as i brought the last of my snacks to my mouth i swam at the entrance to the land of dreams in the pool of hatred oh i thought that old mexican guy seki-sano might show up dressed like santa claus there was something i wanted to ask him but he didn't show up he must have been off season you know christmas the dream i was having was distorted there was an old japanese man who was a choreographer for a Broadway musical in my dream it seems that he was once a dancer who had been active overseas his lone body his one insignificant body was jumping around on stage and as i watched him i found his body my heart was heavy and my agile body transformed into that of an asthmatic great schooler the more desperately i danced the currents in my body were obstructed i was overcome with shame my limbs exploded like sand and crumbled the red fires of war were destroying the alignment of my teeth the panic my heart pounding a member of the secret police dressed in tails a marine deliberating over one menu tangled a young man and his magic marker writing his thoughts and feelings on paper countless prime ministers closing in with wide brins on their faces the sweat spraying and a reddened face on a body that cannot dance and i tearfully begged them to stop overfishing the salmon that's given birth me on the internet me in the coral reef i am the fish cake that i eat as i kick children to death i am surrounded by myself and at the peak of my fright the sweat and in my apartment room in Naha there is a sweaty shirt hung up to dry and it had been treated with fabric softener and smelled nice too did he meet your age monument a theater critic had come to Naha according to twitter he was in town to attend a friend's wedding come to think of it twitter was also how i found out about the 311 earthquake when i was in Osaka i emailed the critic and we decided to hang out together before the wedding i sped off in my rental car as i waited for a theater critic in the rundown parking lot near the monorail station the critic appeared art in art with that old mexican all of us in a terrific mood and he chatted away at the critic in spanish the critic half smiling was nodding in agreement um uh could could you speak in english please okay so my hold put together the proposal, the memorial and the big three of chekov's one act forces under the title 33 fainting spells in the three plays a protagonist face 33 times that's a lot of fainting spells each fainting spell was accompanied by live orchestration brass for men, strings for the women and when the character who fainted came to that would stop the music that was his plan that sounds overly dramatic the text in chekov's plays require a light physicality when you think about that lightness the action of fainting creates an interesting contrast by treating the swans as something heavy it plays up the humor simply put you could say that i learned about the inventiveness of the director's imagination and it was a great help when it came time for me to build my own directorial vision but is it really possible to actually discover 33 fainting spells yes it is if you count all the lines that indicate moments of hysterics and dizziness as fainting spells that's the concept behind the direction oh that seems forced the direction seems too strong you could say it is the director's own ego or manipulation of the script the script is merely an ingredient like the skin of a human the skin anybody can wash the skin and make it clean that's what i'm talking about if you take a fresh washcloth and scrub your own body you wash off the grime the director doesn't allow that grime to escape oh my heart hurts the grime is not just grime there themes hidden by the author exist there made the play itself has its own unique characteristics and universality so in order to capture all of that you must scrub the play at times gentle at times more violently to produce high quality grime in other words as a director you could say i am a washcloth but i aim to be the highest quality possible of a washcloth not the kind of towel that's sold to tourists not like you whose only discourse is to critique i may just be a washcloth i want to be a washcloth with history and tradition but a vanguard for the radical as well of me called a zone a memorial where the marriage proposal i hadn't read any of them it was a heated discussion december see glistened yellow like a illusion as he was going to disappear i drove every turn of the steering wheel was comfortable just like a check off play in the passenger seat the critic didn't even glance at the ocean because he was glued to his tablet screen he remained clad in his dark suit his sweat hidden as he researched his okinawa history about minoko about sympathy budget allocations was this place a subject of research to him about the children born of mixed okinawan and american blood about the many emigrants to hawaii et cetera et cetera sanno uncharacteristically leaned forward asking all sorts of questions about the tablet while the critic proudly showed office control of the tablet surprising sanno and manipulating the tablet furthers continuing to surprise sanno in the height there within the car it made me feel joyful and gloomy but mostly glum as i gazed out at the sea the critic and sanno were also discussing the future of japan but for me the sea water seemed more important i want to be a fish the two talked themselves to exhaustion and fell asleep snore sigh snore sigh such peaceful faces and stupid snoring their sleeping faces were probably stupid as well but i was driving everything can look different depending on one's awareness and interest things can look calm and not so things can look alive or already dead then we finally arrived at the himeyuri monument the two had childlike carefree expressions on their faces but you need to wake up at the himeyuri monument i parted my way through crowds of students i gave side long glances at the portraits of the students who had been killed there in a war 70 years ago as if to fuel their covenants towards war but there was never enough time even with running legs or a trot either way i remained unable to shed tears for each and every tragedy we absconded our responsibility the responsibility to accept our history returning to the parking lot i turned on the ignition and gripped the steering wheel an uncomfortable tepid wind blows near the himeyuri monument i walked through the grounds of the peace park the names of the war took place in black did they starve were they in pain suicide or bombs on the cornerstone of the memorial i found the name of a distian relative how did he die a near friend is better than a far-dwelling kinsman at the museum i saw a special exhibit of records of the okinawa war and okinawa emigrants those who emigrated to hawaii, mexico and peru everything grows very distant a strong gust blows i open the car window making the sleeping critics hair flutter and his bra furrow what kind of dream is he having the critics dream the director and i went to an island called kudakajima about 20 minutes away by ferry from the main island of okinawa where we rented bicycles and went our separate ways this is a sacred island where it is said that the okinawan gods recited it was cloudy the island is long and narrow no matter how much i pedal i don't seem to be moving forward in the groves near the sandy beaches bananas grow my bicycle is rusty and i begin to feel like i'm being tortured so i thought i messed up at a shop near the harbor and grabbed a bite a man lurking behind me who looked exactly like the director or rather who was the director himself struck my head with a hard rock or something i felt something warm on my head but for some reason i didn't feel pain a warm liquid blood or brains blow down my face and envelope my body and then spread laterally absorbing the scent of the ground i groaned as i gripped the dirt and somehow i noticed two presences the irritated director and the peaceful director or perhaps it was the presence of the gods the source of the scent of the air or those who worship those deities the travel required to return to our ancestors the home we need to return to in order to sleep both have been lost Mr. Sano announces that he will accompany the director to a relative who lives in Nagao so i must i was goodbye three, Okimi village formerly Anoko my relative in Nagao told me where the ancestral grave was so i went to pay my respects nearby in Okimi it was an unfamiliar landscape it seemed as if i might melt into the green horizon gravestones burrowing into the hillside like gaping mouths greet me when i arrive i be cleansed to my arms sweat drips nostalgic for summer i want to take off as many articles of clothing as i can vivid green leaves unfurl and branches devoid of moisture are scattered a bamboo broom is left abandoned the earth drinking in your sweat your nation twinkles and shines i clean the gravestone and finally bring my hands together in prayer after that even i get sense of the blood connection is my ancestor here in this grave i am your descendant who came wandering under the sun the unforgiving sun the cloud obscured sun the oppressive sun on the red stained earth i felt meek and with the gently swaying fields at my back a moment of silence for all humankind it was a calm day i talk on the phone to my grandmother in Peru and when i told her i had visited her family grave she asked me whether i could find the swing she used to play on the middle floor north of nago in the village of Ogimi nestled in lush green i bought some sake at a store and went to the site of the house my grandmother grew up in now an empty lot there were many taiwan tangerine trees and one sad tree whose name i didn't know and there was the swing that my grandmother apparently played on before the war a photograph from my relative in nago it was a photograph of my grandmother as a young girl smiling with the charm of a bowl of noodles her naturally curly hair tied back, dressed in laborers pants when i showed Sanao this he stared silently at it as if gazing at his own child my grandmother had also said she wanted me to come to Peru to pay my respects to my grandfather's grave my grandfather and his brothers born in Peru who met my grandmother in Okinawa i had seen the burial of my deceased grandfather in this place that was now an empty lot time seemed to have stopped on the return trip from the cemetery we stopped in Hinoko a man known to be a leftist activist with an artificial leg was putting up a tent he continued his protest activities against the relocation of the military base on the fence that separates the military camp and Okinawa protestors from the mainland chanted and hung protest banners and other creations made from signatures of children they gathered but not a single American could be seen on the beach of the US military camp my friend at NHK had been sent to Hokkaido and he traveled by car from Koshiro to Nemuro in Nemuro where he found an active decrepit Pachinko parlor there was a placard on which was written in large letters returned the Kiril Islands but it still isn't clear who that demand should be directed towards no matter what I thought on the beach at least there were people who continued the struggle someone that wasn't me was staking their lives on it destroying their lives Sekisano exchanged one or two words with the activists and after some invisible communication took place he placed his travel bag by his feet and with a redder face he began a peculiar movement what is he doing on the beach this rat man who had been vanished from Russia the embassy had sent inquiry after inquiry a relentless stream of threatening letters what in the world would have happened to him had he never awakened to self-expression and it simply and quietly lived a bourgeois life I imagined the director is going to Peru to see his grandmother a parent I prefer to relive my memories alone of when I left Russia I escaped to Paris and walked that night to avoid people as if the sun had disappeared it was gone I heard about the death of my daughter from my wife I left behind in Russia gone I poured too much sugar in a cafe that stank of urine on the Champs-Elysées pretty soon this city would be cloaked in darkness a thug targeting me for the accusations of treason tried to lure me into a basement but I rebuffed such invitations his the director great grandfather got on a ship around the time I began making theater in Tokyo a ship headed to Peru and he dreaming of the new world I went round and round Tokyo, Berlin Moscow, Paris New York it was a circuitous route till I landed in Mexico did that ship headed for Peru sway I prayed for the peace of my fellow countrymen who died on the swaying ship Peru one, pay out sea vegetable seaweed, curry powder green tea to my grandmother a calendar from Japan my suitcase is packed to the gills when I arrived in Lima it was midnight in January, Peru and the southern hemisphere welcomed the height of summer I was expecting someone to pick me up I threaded my way on a pitch black passageway the friendly immigration officer was full of smiles and I'm done in two minutes the customs inspection of my luggage also went smoothly I'm dizzyed by the power of my Japanese passport I head to the exit in the dim airport there are people preparing to leave people picking people up and I who just landed all of us are overflowing with liveliness a relative was supposed to greet me but I don't know who someone was supposed to find me someone who insisted they knew me even as I had no memory of meeting them before nobody is there I am alone I wander I wander then stand still in my birth town I am helpless when I go outside to smoke a cigarette the cab drivers talk to me in fluent English no matter how many times I refuse them the number of my baggage doesn't change the sky is dark but I can still tell it was cloudy and when I inhale I catch a scent between the noise of the parking lot and the smell of gasoline the dry fishy scent of this my other hometown where I don't understand the language standing there the cab drivers English is restless though I can't make sense of the words I want to steep myself in these nostalgic sounds and smells for a while longer Sano drags his leg and approaching me as I smoke give me a cigarette Mr. Sano I didn't really smoke here you go it's an American cigarette I bought it duty free at the airport in Japan I didn't know tobacco was bourgeois there is it's easy to tax tobacco so they pile it on and now tobacco is the most popular item at the duty free shops for travelers is that so is that so Mr. Sano are you still waiting to get into the country second Sano after meeting Europe requested entry into the United States but found himself imprisoned on Ellis Island this island was a zero of all the immigration applicants and it was full of their noises those who received their papers each blabbering in their own language it was a compulsory refugee camp and I was looking for detention in 1938 you already entered the country yes but my ride isn't here your ride get in the car use your voice and your words I suppose I'll get a cab but I just changed my money and I only have large bills 100 solars and the cab driver says he can't make change for that how much will it cost from the airport to my grandmother's house I don't know the value of the paper money what if he drops me off in a strange neighborhood with two suitcases important paperwork and a laptop thrust into the street in the middle of the night without a phone where can I find a certainty that a passerby would be kind to me isn't this your hometown you got into the country didn't you it may be my hometown but that doesn't mean someone is going to help me of course I moved the airport full of the birth odor of human bodies I have no language I don't know anyone I've got nothing, nothing at all in Japan it's just past noon and I'm really wide awake because I slept on the plane of course we can't sleep before I went to Russia I stopped by America there all of the important paperwork I needed to attend an international labor theater alliance was stolen idiot in fact all my, oh even my hat were stolen I was fortunate enough to gain entry this time immigration is taking so long how can I sleep I've become an exile if I'm deported back to Japan no doubt the long sentence awaits me nobody's coming to pick me up they called me traitor what options do I have I've got nothing except to live a life eating my own shit it's surprisingly tasty you say be my guest eat it the political refugee hides in the shadow between the pages of history and there the shadow sucks them dry half of my body has been taken by my nation but even now I believe there is a place for me to take action there must be it just didn't turn out to be America so what of it I want to revel in a place where the citizens and the government battle with each other in a revolutionary theater I want to get on a boat and ride it there is government support still necessary for the production of art what can art like that do for the masses you're fighting for you'll forget so easily a few years after I left the port of Yokohama at the age of 26 and was imprisoned on an arrogant island and I trembled at the possibility that I might be deported back to my own country I want to create a theater for the next generation I want to make theater that has nothing to do with politics and war I want to revel in endless free thought as I grapple with the bodies of actors I want to run wildly and sweat on the stage I always thought that you made theater as a means of being politically active isn't it a failure to make theater devoid of social significance I'm just making theater I just want to make theater we mean different things when we say the word politics and he returned to his island prison and much later I still kind of understand without word meant theater I come to the other side of the planet and I just wanted to get to my destination as quickly as possible every day from the port of Yokohama there were travelers exchange students, future political refugees immigration applicants and diplomats riding out to sea my great grandfather left Yokohama on September 23, 1920 the immigration ship on voyage number 69 arrived in Kayaw near Lima on November 12 the immigrants settled in Kayaw and later scattered the airport I'm in right now is in the same Kayaw after wandering around the 1700 square feet of the arrival lobby for 90 minutes Isabel, a friend of my grandmother found me and I was finally reunited with my grandmother seeing her grandchild's face for the first time in 20 years she didn't recognize me she said I looked so different from photographs I brushed off her comment laughing that my facial expressions change every day no wonder she didn't recognize me in that moment for the two of us became a special funny story we shared it took an hour by car to reach my grandmother's house in San Borja where I was born I loaded my suitcases into the car and without much conversation we drove the streets of Lima at night seemed surprisingly well paved and the music that played inside the car winter landscape of the Sugari streets was popular with the Japanese Peruvian driver who spoke no Japanese and he sang along we watched the NHK through satellite broadcast and Grandma and I yawn the living room was about 215 square feet and was built by Grandpa who sold Nissan car parts the broadcasting station in Tokyo reported damages caused by a snow storm to us in the southern hemisphere we watched the morning drama in the evening and singing contests at night the high concrete block wall surrounding the house is topped by barbed wire winged ants who'd overcome that barrier and entered the house fall onto the tablecloth they fly straight into the light fixture and then fall and as they circle around on the tablecloth I smushed them with our fingers without a sound I learned how to say chicken in Spanish pollo it's cute and a butt and however are pero I want to eat pollo pero I dislike the smell of cilantro so I give this pollo to the pero on the dining room table there are besides the pollo which is the national food of Peru pickled cucumber miso soup white rice large flavorless fermented soybeans stir-fried noodles a fruit that looks like a cherry tomato and granadilla that looks like a pomegranate and is supposedly good for constipation in the evenings as we drink incocola an HK tells us about the port of Izu tomorrow morning there are 14 hours ahead of us and what's for breakfast there Japanese TV is all about food yes it really is but we are completely enthralled by that breakfast report I heard Japanese bread is really delicious grandma says and I think I'd love to bring some with me on my next visit but it would be difficult I even imagined packing a baker up very small and bringing him over but this is all inside my imagination of course I'm drinking some weak green tea and grandma was sleeping sitting in her chair grandma you should go to sleep properly oh yeah you go to sleep too we're going to go to the real Ichi-jinai recreational center tomorrow so we need to leave by 9am alright I'll go to bed soon goodnight my mother had made me bring a few small bean bags and I practiced struggling them with grandma before sleep as an exercise to prevent dementia but that only lasted three days and after waking grandma who goes down in front of the TV and upstairs to the room where my father grew up and went to sleep on the big bed my father's computer is still in this room and the shower is sometimes cold but that's fine since it's summertime the scent of the humid filthy dirt is stirred up by the exhaust of the cars racing down Abiasion Street the water pressure of the toilet is weak and often one flush wouldn't catch all the particles I would smoke cigarettes shirtless and gaze down at Abiasion Street calves would make a right on red sirens on police cars echoed surrounding us from both sides unseen in the middle of the night the sidewalks were dimly lit in orange as homeless people and young couples walked and criminals would escape unseen I see sanitation workers in yellow water repellent uniforms pushing huge garbage cans walking tomorrow I will accompany grandma to her weekly visit to the real Ichi-jinai recreational center I must get to sleep I lay down in bed and I count the rows of cars immobilized by the huge snowstorm of January 2014 as I saw in NHK I had dreams all the time and it was hot and humid but it wasn't as bad as summer in Japan I was reminded of the lush green and ojimi village in Okinawa I wonder if it's cold there now Lima is always cloudy dusty slum town mountains of fruit blue tarps for ceiling all grey mountains the monorail under construction dust, natural gas traffic jams buses, reckless driving the male voices of barkers calling out I wonder how sono has spent the night a soft pillow a bed caving in the middle grandma's bed on the first floor was so there with clothes and photographs it looked like there was hardly any space grandma in a floral dress smoothing out the wrinkles on her face with her palms of her hands dragging her right leg a little did she always sleep here in the living room chair all alone the sound of NHK uninterrupted until late three Ryoichi Jinai Recreational Center the director having no opportunity to look at the scenery outside because of Peruvian driver's destructive driving takes in the smells of the perfume car interior and the odor of old age as he listens to the Spanish conversation of the Japanese Peruvian meanwhile the micro bus zigzags down the road chasing a homeless man and child clad in traditional income guard in the sidewalk and in about an hour we arrived at the Ryoichi Jinai Recreational Center the bus stopped in front of the main entrance like headband and a ramp for wheelchairs is hooked under this side door from the outside at the entrance a team of volunteer staff clad in a lower shirt uniform came to assist each senior one by one of the bus greeting them warm hugs and kisses at the second floor reception each senior took their name tag and paid their 10 solace participation fee and then over 50 of these elderly folk sat around tables drinking green tea and getting their blood pressure taken it was almost 11am this was the site every morning now this week next week I commune to Jinai every mondays I introduce the director to my monday friends with such pride that he seems giving and embarrassed near though I introduce my grandson to everyone at the Ryoichi Jinai Recreational Center the director of my grandson watches Jiro Kanemori singing on TV and folds origami and learns how to make tea in a way his never experienced in Japan with folks who might be the grandmas and grandpas of someone who lives in Okinawa he met a karate master there and he even thought about becoming a volunteer staff there in celebration of all the January birthdays maybe something 80 something, 90 something or 100 something seniors all helped each other in a sweet cake then we sang songs like hometown spring creek that wonderful love once more the demon's pants and Masao to the accompaniment of a piano played by the wife of a Japanese office worker stationed there the song, the flower blooms to the earthquake relief program and a city of it had been made of the Monday senior center class singing it of the bonankai end of the year party they were giving out these CDs and I got one too a Japanese Peruvian grandpa who can't speak Japanese grandma mixes Japanese Okinawa, Spanish the grandson explains origami folds in Japanese but Mrs. Onaga and Mrs. chin and frown and tell him I don't understand what's happening as she drinks green tea or eat cold tempura grandma says I'd like to go to Okinawa one more time but it's impossible I'm too old I'm given up grandma's husband died 20 years ago he was born in Peru but he returned or rather went to Okinawa as a teenager and there met grandma it was the period before the war and Jenae Ryoichi who would later build this Ryoichi Jenae recreational center was still a boy obsessed with the adventure comic book popular at the time which fueled his admiration for immigrants why didn't he emigrate himself you are failures in the world of economics for founding consumer credit in Japan but money lending makes me think of pearls one mustn't say bad things about people who still lend money after eating a meal at the restaurant called Kitana on the first floor the grandson felt the urge to tweak the nose of the statue of Mr. Jenae displayed in the foyer to be honest I wanted to go abroad the South Pacific South America I just wanted to go overseas but I wasn't able to the war ended in 1945 in February of the following year half a year after the end of the war I worked to Hokkaido in the single backpack I wanted to farm for someone born in the south in Shikoku snow is a rarity as a child I always dreamed of places where it snowed and I wanted one day to live in a place like that Kagawa prefecture is the smallest prefecture in Japan and Hokkaido is the largest that's why I went from the border in Kagawa to Hokkaido but when I got there there was a food search and job search even the farmers were eating scrap rice there was no work no no I looked there was nothing it was right after the war so there was no work no job to work no food to eat in the end I had to go back to Shikoku the young man dreams build up a large consumer blending company and promised himself to support Japanese communities abroad create programs for Japanese war orphans in China to return to Japan and now he lives his dream of growing mangos in the land of Hokkaido racing cattle and flying all over Japan the statue of you represents the bottomless thanks that these grandmas and grandfathers have once a week these folks who were scattered through the city gathered together for a week they come together once a week to chat with each other their sons have gone to Japan and their daughters have moved to the states the songs of their far away homeland etched in their genes overflowed in this building who cares what Japan has to say here time continues to flow why did the man with such lending power ability to take action influence become a politician in the afternoon everyone fell asleep and put to the music of Ikoso Yoshi so the grandson returned to the statue the foyer and happened his chess I still want to go to South America my age being what it is there's nothing I can do the task of completing the farm I started building in Hokkaido still remains my time is limited I'm almost 90 my legs and my stamina aren't what they used to be so I have no choice but to give up on my South American dream but I decided I'm going to keep working all over Japan even if I become violent to a wheelchair I'll die in a hotel while on a business trip and I feel that kind of destiny awaits me heard bloody stories of deceit about the politics immigration policy the sweat that oozes from the body and dirt if I'd gone I would have suffered the same hardships and troubles I've asked myself countless times whether I would have been able to endure that much suffering I merely wanted to go abroad startled the grandson removed his hand from the statue and returned to the room where they were singing close your hands open your hands and stared at the movements of the elderly their slow date their hips, their backs the grandmothers were raising their voices opening their hands wide smiling for the however hundreds or thousands of times in their lives repetition and accumulation their hunched backs have pours that have produced tens of thousands of litters of sweat and the white hair that have been cut over and over in his cups the scale of one's life might be defined by the size of one's body can we really look at the world outside of our own body's mobility level? he wondered there ought to have been something recorded in his own body but the grandson could not unearth it at the end they sang the Jina'i recreational center song and in the evening they bordered the micro bass with its violent driving and one by one they scattered across the city of Lima Mr. Tehira dressed in an Adidas track suit made a worker open the gates to his big house and then slowly as if he were floating he looked forward and went inside his house slowly as if he were floating the seniors one by one the respective stops and disappeared four grave visit and bus the next day my grandson and I took a cap I don't write taxes by myself it's too scary I get it I've heard stories about being robbed in a strange alley I kept our conversation inside a part of a minimum and watched the street outside with through sunglasses it was an unusually bright for Lima we visited his great grandparents and grandfather's graves the bright blue sky and the green ground clean water, civil engineers when I held my grandson's hand I was no longer walking alone we traced the names of the gravestones brought our hands together and I tell them that their descendants had come in the afternoon when we returned to the house my grandson stuck my house key to the outside of his belt inside of his belt put some change in his pocket a hundred solace built in his shoe and said he'd be back before dark and went out when he reached Andama Street which intersects Abiasion Avenue he got in a bus at the side of the mall built by American capital King and KFC and Kentari Sushi Andama Street is very noisy there's more sweat and hair than people piles and piles of bricks and gas permeates the air besides the buses and the micros micros there are wagon buses called combis and they were speeding down the street bus passed the cars and taxes but suddenly stopped in their sections barkers on the bus shout out the bus's destination and beckon wildly collecting customers the crowded combi buses even seat two customers in its passenger seat in this moment my grandson jumped on a micro, a regular bus he sat down with his hands on his lap as he was jostled by the bus pushing his way through this raging streets he would give once all each or applaud the musicians rapping and guitarists who would board the bus and route and play for tips and suddenly there was a teenage girl sitting across the aisles her black hair pulled back with a smile like a tomato against her dark skin who was chatting cheerfully with her mother the energy of her legs that emerged like noodles out of her white shorts the moisture of her breasts reminded him of crystal accelerate the downy hair on her arms would give energy back to the sun hidden behind some clouds this was exactly what that Japanese pop song was referring to with the lyrics about how you feel like you understand something about life when you're swaying along with the bus and the grandson reveled in this repetitive suspended days spent with his grandmother connected him to his ancestors and in his mouth he would keep the taste of the potato he ate in Mira Flores with his cousin Eddie who would visit once in a while the people waiting for the bus the middle-aged man with his hand raised who looks like he's been living on the streets women in red trying to stop the buses with language gestures mothers with children clambering aboard the middle doors of the moving bus all on the same brown and grey road everyone is lazy and energetic he was planned to get off on the other side of Metropolitan Station in Anganos Pat Pat, someone pats him on the shoulder from behind when he started he had no idea what was going on and with a shallow face and black hair in sitting behind him the bus continues to skip down the road making the sound of a terrible grumble Buenos tardes Buenos tardes Oud Japanese Ahaponez No You are Japanese, wonderful I was looking for a Japanese person This is wonderful I am so pleased to meet you I had a peruvian girl back there that I was looking for a Japanese person she said that you were probably Japanese though it's difficult to tell so I was wondering is he but this is wonderful I was looking for a Japanese person Are you on vacation? No sir To be honest I'm from Japan looking for a Japanese person and I'm distributing these flyers Here Take this and read it for starters What now? Have you read it? Now? Yes, of course Between you and me it's really better if you read it You want redemption, don't you? Do you plan to go anywhere after this? How about joining me for a meal at a restaurant nearby as a social gathering I'll make it worth your time I've been looking for you Do you have books there too? No Don't turn me down I put a lot of effort into drawing those Excuse me I turned into a comic book artist What are you planning to do now? Are you riding this bus giving up on life like an old man spending the evening in a daze? You don't have anything I'd love to draw the rest of the story by myself Oh no I turned into a comic book artist again So How about a meal? Let's get off this rotten bus There's a restaurant called Fuji nearby It's not bad I'm sure you don't have anything pressing, right? I have to be back before sundown Then I'll show you a sun that never sets Listen Everything goes haywire because you put yourself in the center You've heard of putting others before yourself, haven't you? You must destroy yourself to serve good It doesn't matter what you see in front of your eyes You are suspicious of who I am and what I'm planning to do to you but there's no reason for a rewarding man Most of the people in this world are disadvantaging themselves for the sun that never sets To be clear we seek so eagerly a sun that never sets that we destroy ourselves If only they knew how they would find such a sun easily They say that people who are no good at studying are simply lacking a productive method of studying In other words, I'm offering you a lecture on efficiency and on this theme together We'll explore what is the fastest, cheapest and simplest solution All you have to do is close your eyes and do exactly as I say If what you desire isn't a terminal slumber that is fine as well I even have the power to manipulate your dreams It's easy for me to show you what you want to see, but I'm sure what you're looking for because you put so much effort into serving the public good I can tell by looking in your eyes but it hasn't gone well I understand you, comrade It's all right for you to not be yourself Don't think about yourself The reason why we suffer for other people's lives is because we are attached to ourselves but that's not right There's no need for our lives to be scraped away like that That's not right Come, anyway let's have a meal at Fuji restaurant I'll tell you which comic you are to read too That is how my grandson was taken by a religious recruiter Of the bus that undamaged stationed in Metropolitan and to a combi called by the recruiter towards Fuji The combi's cramped Japanese people in the color of dirt They all carried large backpacks from which hung dirty cups their hair overgrown and damaged all of them facing straight ahead with perfect posture staring at a single point out of focus In those eyes were a vacant hope and it was calm inside the car except for the sound of the engine and the noise of the tires skidding on the laugh asphalt The recruiter's finger was lifted in mid-air with a smile on his face moving his finger as if conducting an orchestra Though the grandson felt uncomfortable with the scene he couldn't make eye contact with anyone and stared blightly at the back of the passenger's seat The traffic outside was noisy and it didn't feel like anything had to do with me and everything became a still time and space Oh, by the way an NHK world due to over copyright issues they're permitted to replace video with stills but still broadcast on audio The video is hidden there's no proof that it existed Sound is huge every event has a sound sound creates the sound of guns the sound of eating the sound of praying everything and anything sound falls into the gap between words crawls around lies down and then disappears you scold an actor and the sound of the direction is heard then disappears and then a new actor and director come along the sound of lighting instrument the sound of the audience adjusting himself on his seat the crowd people gathered in a public space the sounds and people who will probably disappear still remain echoing in our ears theater I went to a theater in my town to see a play called all of humankind is tilting to the right parentheses, phallocentrism the director of the production a man who spoke Spanish with an asian accent came dragging his right leg and sat next to me his hat was rather dusty and stained and his cane was black today I saw what could be considered Teatro for the first time I was surprised I bought a ticket for the price of 20 bottles of Coca-Cola and when I get to the theater everyone besides me is in formal dress the bearded guy in that expensive suit the cultured lady speaking a mysterious language where do you see them walking around in our town what mountain did they come down from the play itself was an absurd comedy about a theater director who doesn't want to direct anymore and he can't control his sex drive and because he's too serious he goes crazy and though he finds support from other directors he flails around in different situations the play had a kind of European or American sense of levity and yet it had it was like hey let's think about the relationship between politics and art and I found it pretty laughable but what the heck was this really seeing this play even applying it to my daily life doesn't even nourish my shit if you're going to make me laugh just make me laugh in fact I'll have to resign myself to being jealous of those stinking rich people sitting next to me who seem to always be eating thick steaks and drinking coffee that Asian directors clothes were terribly worn and though he is apparently doing quite well where he is based I should have asked his opinion on those patrons is this really how it should be can you accept this play as a side dish to their dinner where are the ordinary people on the street and I perhaps am not an ordinary person either I can only sit in the audience straight in my back and gaze at the movement of the actors on stage we're going to take about 15 or 30 minutes now to have a discussion about the play that you just heard and I'll introduce the panelists in a minute but just I saw this play two years ago when we were coming in in Yokohama in Japan and I saw it at the Tokyo performing arts meeting and two of us in the room saw it there and I was really struck by it was a pretty remarkable play and I really congratulate you on a wonderful play it was a play that I think is for me anyway really exciting because it begins to explore Japan from the perspective of Japan in the world and it introduces some of the perhaps lesser known history of Japan Japan's history of integration prior to level two it's engagement with the modern theater and modern arts really very strong engagement with the modern arts prior to level two and the history of artists and this is something I think in some ways has disappeared from the memory of many Japanese people and certainly as somebody who sometimes teaches Japanese theater it's not commonly discussed in the theater itself so and also a play that deals with the contemporary realities of Japanese society as an immigrant society this is also something that is not discussed very broadly in the theater in Japan and this was also something remarkable so it's very taken by the way that this play in a way repositions Japan and brings it into a kind of conversation with the history of the 20th century in some ways and I think we've had some of those experiences encapsulated in the play today so we've been introduced to the play but we might just begin by introducing Sarah Hughes who directed the play and Hayo Ogawa who's the translator of this play and also many many other plays into English from Japanese and we've already been introduced to the playwright Yudai Kamisato and before I ask you Sarah about your translation of the play sorry your direction of the translation of the play I'd like to just begin to ask you a little bit about your family history and yourself and how that connects to the play Thank you Thank you My father is from Okinawa and my father is from Okinawa and my father is from Okinawa and Kamisato is the last name that is specific to that area and my great grandfather was from my family immigrated to Peru and it was a time in Japanese history where there was a a large movement towards immigrating to North America and as well as South America and I think North America and as well as South America and it was the kind of situation where people who were immigrating were hoping to be able to work abroad and send money home but of course that wasn't the case and in most cases they were kind of indentured servitude situation Although unlike America Japan is not a nation created by immigrants but there is a significant history of Japanese people immigrating abroad and it's a part of history that is not well known generally and my mother was from Hokkaido and as is often the case it was very males the men in my family were educated in Japan so my grandfather and my father myself were educated in Japan and now I am kind of living in the middle of between Hokkaido and Okinawa in the middle of Tokyo and in terms of the my family history and the relationship to this particular play I had meaning to to to to to to to to to I had meaning to I had been meaning to go home to Peru for a long time and as kind of research and along the way I wrote this play and also while I was in Peru I picked up a book about Samoseki the Mexican-Japanese theater maker and his life and times and this also coincided with the time in my life where I had been had more chances opportunities to to to to have more chances opportunities to see theater from Europe and I really felt a kind of impotence of theater in modern society so in this play I was kind of exploring the extremes of intention of theater Thank you, thank you very much I was very much taken by the comment in the play can we look outside of ourselves it's one of the lines that one of the characters uses in the play where they're starting to talk about I guess the possibility of looking at oneself in relationship to history and I wanted to ask you as a translator is that something that you relate to as somebody who's one living between two cultures but also translating from two different languages are you kind of looking outside of yourself when you're in that kind of process or is that or is that too clever I've never thought of it that way I really feel like really like a filter I feel like I I take in work and then it passes through me and becomes something else I think that as a cultural person I do frequently see myself outside of any given community and I think that does relate to my work as a translator for sure Sarah silence and absence and gaps constantly appear in this play perhaps references to maybe sense of this location possibly there's a kind of very trans-historical approach to time in this play jumping from one place to another and one time to another Seiki Sano is a real character he's a real figure from history who suddenly pops up in this play with a kind of manifesto a kind of Marxist political theater and also in preparation I read that he is the Japanese person who translated the Internationale into Japanese so he's quite a significant figure in the leftist theater of the pre-war period but this question of gaps and silences it's possibly an aesthetic that is something that is seen in the Japanese theater quite a lot but not in other theaters how do you come as a director of that kind of writing that kind of idea about space and time? Yeah, so I mean it's definitely difficult with doing I feel, reading this play I felt so strongly that I wanted to see it fully staged and of course there wasn't a time doing it as a reading is only sort of a first pass at what I think especially this play what it really how it can resonate I think especially because on the page it's very dense it's these long pieces of text with sort of these enjambments and line breaks so I think we were trying to play with being able to hear trying to hear that language when I think a reading format sometimes can be better suited to something that's a little bit more dialogue heavy and so that was definitely that was definitely a challenge and definitely playing with that sort of being between places and times I think so clearly from you guys family history and the history of the protagonist he's in this moment of being kind of in transit like perpetually jet lagged waking up in this and not being sure where he is and similarly those are the moments when someone like Sekisano might appear there's all these moments about dreams so I think when we were working on it in the small amount of rehearsal time we had that was definitely what we were talking about the most how to try to differentiate those dreams and those apparitions from a more this is happening right now those this is happening right now moments like the religious recruiter thing at the end is one of the only moments that it feels like this is sort of present I guess and so much of the rest of it is like inside this floating dream space of like you said trans nationality and trans historicity so definitely Thank you Back to Kamisato-san I'm interested in this play is also a kind of manifesto for theatre or maybe it's more than one minute maybe there's two or three manifesto of course theatre in Japan has a long history of meaning something in the pre-war period the modern theatre was very much connected with an experimental theatre movement but also a political theatre movement after the war we had a return to a kind of Brechtian theatre then we had the 1960s where theatre took on another kind of political tenor and then somehow since then we've had a series of very complex relationships very complex arguments about theatre and its relationship to society some artists saying yes theatre is connected to society some artists saying theatre is more about entertainment and as a young or mid-career artist you're making a very strong statement here about theatre and its politics so I wondered if you could speak a little bit more about the role of theatre and politics in this play so two years ago when I was writing this play I wasn't writing it thinking I want to make a piece of theatre I was thinking I want to make politics and the politics that I wanted to practice wasn't the kind of politics that I wanted to practice and I thought that I would be better than the way I would have to act and how I could I was the type of person who used to be practice wasn't the kind of politics that politicians engage in, but rather I was investigating what it would mean, what does personal politics mean? And for me, it meant evoking the presence of people who are not in this room. It's been seven over 70 years now since the end of World War Two. And in Japan, there are hardly any, there are fewer and fewer people who actually lived through the wartime experience. So Japan is in a moment right now where we really have to look at the future and have a consciousness about what kind of relationship do we want to have with all the other countries in the world. When that happened, what kind of experience did the war-trial researchers experience? If you don't ask the local government, you can't imagine what it would be like. But there is a huge record and a huge story and if we can only learn from history by hearing about experiences directly from the people who experienced it, then the time for us to learn about war is coming to an end. However, these larger stories and these larger themes still remain. And if the stories can be passed on from person to person, if we can still learn from these stories, not first hand but second hand, that I felt like is where the true power of theater lies. That's what I wanted to say in terms of politics. The existence of the actors is not exactly the same as the actors, but rather the story as a messenger. That's what I wanted to create. That was my investigation into personal politics. In the theater, we have these actors who are channeling other characters, other stories, other times. That was the way I was looking at theater when I was creating this piece. Thank you. I'm really aware of time here because there's going to be another play reading at 6pm, but I would like to take maybe just one or two questions from the audience and just very, very quick questions. So, there's one there. But keep your questions brief, please, because we will have to finish by within five minutes. I recently saw the making of Ran, the backstory of Ran, and I kept on hearing Shakespeare's metaphors being... And just that experience of Shakespeare. How much did Shakespeare... Are you aware of Shakespeare and how much have you that influenced you? Yes. That's a good answer. I think we'll follow that up in a discussion after the session. But indeed, that film is very much based on Shakespeare's... The first play I ever read was actually Shakespeare's Macbeth, and I read it in English. I couldn't read it. Most of us could either. Is there one more question, very brief, otherwise we'll just wrap it up. The helpers pack up and set up for the next session. Okay, well, thank you very much for coming along this afternoon. Thank you for coming. And a final round of applause for the performance this afternoon. Thank you.