What goes around comes around, they say, and in the early 1980s, Japan's contemporary drama scene was transformed by a slew of small companies that were the artistic heirs of the previous generation's radical student politics. That brave new world of the so-called shogekijo (small-scale theater movement) was led by a still sparkling cast of playwrights/actors/directors such as Hideki Noda, Shoji Kokami and Hidenori Inoue.
But that movement has now in turn engendered a trend among younger dramatists that is pushing the envelope yet further.
Striking among this new wave of shogekijo is Potudo-ru, a Tokyo-based company led by 31-year-old Hokkaido-born playwright and director Daisuke Miura, who — together with contemporaries like Yukiko Motoya and Toshiki Okada — is busily reinventing the radical-theater wheel in Japan.