chelfitsch: Theater of alienated youth
Despite the foreign-sounding name, chelfitsch is one of the most acclaimed phenomena in Japan's theater scene from the last decade. Leader Toshiki Okada created the hybrid name out of the English words "selfish" and "childish" -- an adequate descriptor for much of the group's commentary on contemporary Japanese society.
Okada spent the last few years taking chelfitsch across America, Europe and Asia, but now he is finally back in Japan to premiere a new play "Who Knows We Are Not Injured like the Others?" at two venues in Yokohama. As a testament to his stature, the play will be running for four weeks, a remarkable achievement for non-commercial theater in Japan.
Okada's main thematic subject is the so-called post-Bubble "Lost Decade" generation; youth so lacking in motivation that the meaning of their sentences tends to disappear underneath a veil of apathy. His breakthrough play -- the award-winning "Five Days in March" (YouTube clip here) -- was about a one-night stand between two aimless strangers that becomes a long sojourn in a Shibuya love hotel, set against anti-war protests going on outside.
In the archetypical chelfitsch play, the characters speak a 'super-real' Japanese vernacular in fragmented semi-monologues barely directed to each other. Their bodies are often alienated from their words and thoughts and perform disconnected movements and gestures. Okada faithfully takes the way Japanese youth talk and think to the an extreme, where communication breaks down. Japan, Okada believes, is now in a state of disarticulation. Though the plays lack action -- even by theater standards -- the language is rich and expressive, and much comedy ensues.
The new play "Who Knows We Are Not Injured like the Others?" takes place in the apartment of a thirty-something couple. Okada, however, is looking to go somewhere beyond his usual youth-speak vernacular. "I want to ask if it's possible on stage to re-imagine people's anxiety and their inability to share that anxiety," Okada says. With this new work, he will no doubt again create an expressionistic world of personal and social disenchantment. Sadly, the chelfitsch theater is not an escape from our contemporary lives.
"Who Knows We Are Not Injured like the Others?"「わたしたちは無傷な別人であるのか？」
ST Spot, February 14–26 (Yokohama ST Building B1, Kita-Saiwai 1-11-15, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, tel. 045 325 0411)
Yokohama Museum of Art, March 1-10 (Minato-mirai 3-4-1, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, tel. 045 221 0300)
Tickets ¥3,000
For more information, check chelfitsch.net.
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