Back in July, at a New National Theatre Tokyo (NNTT) press conference to herald this autumn's special staging of William Shakespeare's nine-hour-long "Henry VI" trilogy, Hitoshi Uyama, 56, its director, declared his intention to go beneath and beyond the blood, guts and gore of the famous epic set during the War of the Roses, England's 15th-century civil war between the House of Lancaster (red rose) and the House of York (white rose).
In the lobby of the theater, surrounded by members of his cast, Uyama, also the NNTT's artistic director, said: "Rather than doing a deadly serious, magnificent historical play, I wanted to bring out the unchanging folly of our human nature.
"We set out to derive a little bright wisdom for our future from these stupid but important historic struggles." And to help spread that wisdom, he announced plans to "open theater to everybody" through a series of lectures and exhibitions during the production's monthlong run.