Toshiki Okada's current play is set in a 24-hour convenience store called “Smile Factory”. In this brightly lit, always freshly scrubbed modern paradise, air-conditioned to a pleasant temperature, a web of relationships between personnel and customers starts to unravel, marked by everyday rituals. Abe and Sakamoto, the night clerks, indulge in wild speculations over the question of when the branch manager last had sex with his wife. As a gesture of quiet resistance, Abe falsifies the customers' age statistics now and then. Every week on Tuesday and Friday, the new products go on sale to great excitement. Will the ice cream flavour “Super Premium Soft Double Vanilla Rich” fulfil expectations and turn out to be the hot ticket of the summer? To music by Johann Sebastian Bach, the performers interact using stuttering and constantly repeating words and gestures. Even more so than in “Hot Pepper, Air-Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech”, the performance seeks out a dialogue with the movements of the music.
Part of "Japan Syndrome - Art and Politics after Fukushima"
Commisioned by Theater der Welt 2014, world premiere 24 May 2014 in Mannheim.
Produktion: chelfitsch in Zusammenarbeit mit precog (Tokyo). Koproduktion: Theater der Welt 2014 (Mannheim), KAAT (Kanagawa Arts Theater, Yokohama), LIFT- London International Festival of Theatre, Maria Matos Teatro Municipal (Lissabon), CULTURESCAPES (Basel), Kaserne Basel, House on Fire mit Unterstützung des Kulturprogramms der Europäischen Union. Gefördert durch den Arts Council Tokyo.