chelfitsch: Five Days in March February 12, 2009

"By juxtaposing global events and personal revelations, chelfitsch beautifully captures the distance and conflict between them."—Yomiuri

Rising Japanese theater ensemble chelfitsch takes its name from a baby's mispronunciation of "selfish." The pun reflects playwright and director Toshiki Okada's view of his generation's failure to cope with coming of age. Already a hit at major international festivals, the company is one of the most talked about groups to emerge from Japan's vital theatrical scene. Its style will surely appeal to fans of U.S.–based theater innovators such as Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Young Jean Lee, and Richard Maxwell.

Set during the days immediately before the U.S.A.'s "shock and awe" bombing of Iraq in March 2003, Five Days in March projects subtle universal truths while delivering an incisive and deftly anticlimatic portrait of the irony, obliviousness, and impotence of youth culture in Japan. The show's premise involves two young hipsters meeting and hooking up at a Tokyo rock show for a one night stand that evolves into five days of sex, drinking, and ennui. In Okada's deceptively slight narrative, a vast catalog of sly, fidgety gestures take on choreographic scope.

Official Website: http://www.wexarts.org/pa/index.php?eventid=3571