A year ago, I was sad to report on the sluggish condition of the Japanese contemporary theater world. Now, I am delighted to have had to struggle to select just five of the best of plays of 2008 from so many worthy contenders — many of them new and original works concerned with the current social situation of Japan.
First of all, I have to cheat by mentioning not just Keralino Sandorovich's "Sharp-san Flat-san (Sharps and Flats)," — the director's best piece from 2008 — but all of his original work this year. After a three-year stretch in which he reworked his own older plays and directed others', this master of black humor came back with "Waga Yami (We Wish There Was Not Light)," followed by a superbly adapted version of "The Lower Depths (Donzoko)" by the 19th-century Russian writer Maxim Gorky, a depiction of the downtrodden working classes that featured original live music, a few laughs and a hint of optimism.
The title of Sandorovich's outstanding new play by his own company Nylon 100°C, "Sharps and Flats," refers to people who may look and sound like others but are not quite in tune with what is generally accepted. Set in the early 1990s, the play takes us to a gorgeous bubble-era sanitarium where comedy playwright Kemuri Tsuji (who is played by both Koji Okura and Hiroki Miyake) is taking a break among a cast of normal-looking weirdos. Upon leaving, Tsuji is caught up in the dilemma of whether to conform to public expectations or to live with a clear conscience as an artistic black sheep. But then the bubble bursts, the sanitarium goes under and the real meaning of life becomes clear to the playwright.