Koki Mitani is far and away the nation's best-known dramatist. Although theater is quite a niche medium here, most people in Japan — whether male or female, young or not so young, Japanese or not — recognize his face, even if they couldn't name many of his works. Recently, indeed, I was amazed when a young child sitting next to me in a theater was thrilled to identify Mitani, who was pictured on one of a bunch of handouts disguised as the great Russian playwright and author Anton P. Chekhov.