Gowasan means "call off," "start again," or "bankruptcy." The term is originally derived from abacus calculation, where it refers to the shaking of the abacus to return all beads to their starting point after completing a calculation.
"Ningen Gowasan (Human Gowasan)," now playing at Theater Cocoon in Shibuya, is the first play set in samurai days to come from the pen of progressive dramatist Matsuo Suzuki, who founded Otona Keikaku (Adult Project Theater Company) in 1988.
Matsuo, now 40 and still active in many different fields, has long been a voice for his disengaged generation. This time he both wrote and directed, and also takes the role Nanboku Tsuruya (a famous Edo Period kabuki playwright), who here is a kind of objective observer on the sidelines.