Tomohiro Maekawa, the 40-year-old playwright, director and founder of Tokyo's Ikiume (Buried Alive) theater company, is acclaimed in Japan's theater world for his groundbreaking sci-fi works sometimes bordering on the surreal.
Usually populated by ordinary people such as salarymen and working mothers of around his own age, Maekawa's plays have tended to suddenly plunge the characters into situations involving aliens, invisible powers, dreadful new viruses or other versions of themselves that engulf them in self-doubt as they search for explanations.
However, what's really special about them is that changes in awareness don't just happen to characters on the stage, but also to audiences as Maekawa lures them into questioning with more opened minds how they think about themselves and others.