Plays by three women from Japan were performed in London in January in an initiative to introduce overseas audiences to some of the country's best up-and-coming dramatists.

While Japan may be better known to foreign theatergoers for its kabuki dramas than its contemporary plays, the British and Japanese theater companies behind the initiative hoped to nurture the talent of 14 young Japanese playwrights, with each writer having their work translated into English for potential performance on the London stage.

In the first fruit of the collaboration between the Royal Court Theatre and New National Theatre, Tokyo, the translated plays by three of these writers — Saori Chiba, Shoko Matsumura and Tomoko Kotaka — were performed on three consecutive nights in late January.