Super Premium Soft Double Vanilla Rich is set in a convenience store. The performance, at once humorous and merciless, unfolds to the background music of the convenience store, which happens to be all 48 preludes and fugues that make up J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. The convenience store is an entry point for reflection on today’s Japan in light of the earthquake and nuclear catastrophe that befell it almost five years ago.

Theater performance in Japanese with Arabic and English subtitles, 100’, 2014

Text and Direction: Toshiki Okada. Performed by: Makoto Yazawa, Tomomitsu Adachi, Hideaki Washio, Shuhei Fuchino, Shingo Ota, Mariko Kawasaki, Yukiko Sasaki. Set Designer: Takuya Aoki. Costumes: Sae Onodera (Tokyo Isho). Stage Director: Masaya Natsume, Koro Suzuki. Sound Director: Norimasa Ushikawa. Lighting Director: Tomomi Ohira. Music Arranger: Takaki Sudo. Subtitles: www.sprachspiel.org. Japanese-English translator: Anna Galt. Producer: Akane Nakamura, Tamiko Ouki. Company Manager: Nana Koetting. Production: chelfitsch. Associated production: precog. Commissioned by Theater der Welt 2014. Co-production: Theater der Welt 2014 (Mannheim), KAAT (Kanagawa Arts Theater), LIFT - London International Festival of Theatre, Maria Matos Teatro Municipal (Lisbon), Culturescapes (Basel), Kaserne Basel, A House on Fire; with the support of the European Union. Special thanks to: Steep Slope Studio.

Photo credit: Christian Kleiner.