Shu Matsui's innocent smile is familiar. He's always beaming on TV ads, whether he's plugging a washing softener, playing a gentle new father or promoting mobile phones in the guise of a young doctor. But if you were to see any production by Sample, the theater company Matsui founded in 2007, you'd be amazed to find a huge gap between the 37-year-old playwright, actor and director's heartwarming small-screen personality and the disturbing scripts, bizarre story lines and abstract sets that are his company's trademark.
Matsui's theater work is making quite an impact: In May, he was named by the New York Times as "one of (Japan's) most important young directors." As if pre-empt any stereotyping of his work as offbeat, however, he will stage two completely different plays in Tokyo this month.
"Seichi" ("Holy Place"), the first to open and last to close, follows an uprising in an old-people's home and is set in a near-future Japan in which euthanasia is legal. Matsui wrote the play for veteran dramatist Yukio Ninagawa, who will stage it with a cast including 42 members of his over-60s Gold Theater group (some of whom had no previous acting experience before joining) at Saitama Arts Theater, where Ninagawa is the artistic director.