On Nov. 19, the Pit hall of the New National Theatre, Tokyo, in Shibuya, was filled with hundreds of eager theater-goers. They had come to see a performance of "Onna Goroshi Abura no Jigoku" ("The Women-Killer and the Hell of Oil"), a play written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) — Japan's greatest dramatist, known for his kabuki and traditional bunraku puppet works. For this version of the play, however, the performance was to be far from traditionally Japanese.