It was two years ago, that the three main actors in "Donju (Dumb Animal)," currently running at the Parco Theater, met up over a drink or three. Arata Furuta, Katsuhisa Namase and Narushi Ikeda, are all now in their late 30s and early 40s, but were very prominent in the energetic 1980s Shogekijo (small theater) movement. Although they had gone their separate ways for a decade or more, they started to talk about working together.
The middle-aged trio, who rose to prominence in the '80s, then contacted one of the most "happening" dramatists in Japan, 34-year-old Kankuro Kudo, and asked him to create a play for them.
The contact was worthwhile. Multitalented Kudo, (author of the 2002 Nihon Academy Award-winning scriptwriter of the mega-hit movie "Go," about the identity problems of a Korean-Japanese teenager) answered their call and penned this darkly offbeat, strangely slapstick mystery just for them.