As in soccer, so on stage. Japan-Korea collaboration (or is it Korea-Japan collaboration?) is happening all over.
Just days after the start of the World Cup finals, co-hosted by the two countries, "Across the River" at Tokyo's New National Theater teams talent from both sides in a co-production first mooted 2 1/2 years ago by Tamiya Kuriyama, the NNT's artistic director.
In this rich and satisfying work, every bit as tasty as the onstage hanami (cherry-blossom viewing) picnic during which its events unfold, the Japanese ingredients are provided by dramatist Oriza Hirata, here writing and directing. His Korean counterparts are Kim Myung Hwa, who, after five years as a critic, began writing plays in 1997 and has now emerged as one of her country's most acclaimed dramatists, and Lee Byung Hoon, who won a Korean special director's prize in 1986 and '87 and is a pioneer in cooperation between the two countries' theater worlds.