紛争地域から生まれた演劇シリーズ

Theatre Born inConflict Zones Series
Since 2009
The Theatre Born in Conflict Zones series is a response to the Theatre in Conflict Zones project
organized by the ITI headquarters and Cultural Identity and Development Committee.
Launched in 2009, it has now introduced 33 plays from various countries and regions
around the world, conveying the raw reality of conflict zones andattracting great interest in the local theatre scene.

Scripts of Plays in theTheatre Born in Conflict Zones Series (2023)
Bad Roads by Natalia Vorozhbit (Ukraine)

Ground by Yael Ronen (Israel/Germany) & Ensemble
2019 Common
This Is War by Hannah Moscovitch (Canada)

2020 Liberian Girl by Diana Nneka Atuona (UK)2021 The Murder of Isaac by Motti Lerner (Israel)
Five scripts from Viral Monologues by the 24 Hour Plays (USA)2022 This Trip by Charlie O’Leary / Unknown Caller by Dan O’Brien / Thank You for Visiting Me by Zhu
Yi / Invincible by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen / The Hardest Part by Howard Sherman

Searching for New Plays

ITI Japanese Centre accepts new submissions for plays in
the Theatre Born in Conflict Zones series. Please contact usat mail@iti-j.org.

mail@iti-j.org
The web version ofthe Theatre Yearbook(full-color, 2014–) is available here.

http://iti-japan.or.jp
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itijapan @itijapan

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S P EC I AL F EATURE  “Theatre Born in Conflict Zones 14”
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Theatre Born in Conflict Zones 14
The fourteenth entry in the “Theatre Born in Conflict Zones” series (aproject related to the International Theatre Yearbook) was scheduled to
be a reading of Ukrainian playwright Natalia Vorozhbit’s Bad Roads atProto-Theater in Tokyo from 9–11 December 2022, but that had to becanceled after a person involved in the performance tested positive for
COVID-19. Our editorial department asked director Ikuta Miyuki towrite up some director’s notes.

Director’s notes
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Doubting what you know,
relating indistinguishability
Ikuta Miyuki

I think the announcement that the fourteenth entry in the “Theatre Born inConflict Zones” series would introduce a Ukrainian play was met with a verystrong response. It had been almost a year since the Russian military invasion inFebruary 2022, and I sensed a great deal of public interest in Ukraine and itspeople. I myself began reading the play with a certain sense of anticipation, and I
found myself surprised from the very beginning…
The play is set in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Eight years
before the current invasion, there was already conflict there. Indeed, I recall theannexation of Crimea being reported at the time. But I wonder how many of us
had that clearly in our minds when the invasion occurred in February 2022.
Many of us who were bombarded with the extensive media coverage that started

in February must have felt as if the invasion had come out of the blue.
But as we read more of the play, we again find our expectations subverted.
There is little of what we might expect, such as Ukrainians suffering amidst
Russia’s unreasonable attack as reported daily in the media. What we instead saw
in the script were things like a woman who loses herself in an ill-fated love affair.
The play presents six episodes, starting with a lengthy monologue by awoman. That woman, who seems to be a reflection of the author, leaves Kyiv witha soldier and travels with him to the front lines in eastern Ukraine. Through hereyes, we learn bits and pieces about a front-line base and children involved in thefighting, but her primary interest is in the soldier she is traveling with. She talks
eloquently about her desire for him, to the point where one wonders how she canfall so blindly in love while being surrounded by death. But despite his strong
patriotism, well-developed body, and heroism, he is unable to get an erection,
probably due to psychological stress. The soldier asks the woman to perform oral
sex on him, and their journey eventually ends.
The next four episodes are presented as asides about people the woman

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glimpsed on her journey. Once again, we are confused. From daily news reports,
we have become accustomed to blame for the Russians and an emphasis on thetragedy of the Ukrainians. In this play, however, we also see depictions of sexual
exploitation and violence by Ukrainian soldiers and varied identities for thoseliving in eastern Ukraine. There are those who support and are involved with
Ukrainian soldiers in their work, as well as families who watch Russian television
on a daily basis. There are also soldiers who are anxious about fighting “brotheragainst brother,” yet shoot at each other nonetheless.
This conflict between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions in Ukraine isvery allegorical, especially in the final episode, the only one that takes place
before the war. A young woman runs over a chicken kept by an elderly couple
and proposes to compensate them with money. The couple at first considers heroffer to be some kind of joke, but when the young woman offers them monetarycompensation, they start to bicker and eventually force her to offer them her car
as well. Then they hear a crying child and its mother’s consolations and its
mother, and the couple, as if waking from a nightmare, kick the young woman
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out, shouting “Get the hell out of here, don't try to entice us!”
I myself understood that last line as a criticism of human desire and theviolent nature of capitalism that stimulates it. When people who have lived
modestly and within their means are exposed to the more decadent lifestyle that
capitalism promises, unlimited desire awakens within them, and the life they
have built for themselves is easily destroyed. It was a moment when I, someone
living in a capitalist society, could come into contact with a conflict that was happening far away, despite its being reported on in the news every day.
The troupe had many discussions regarding the language used in this play tofind a way to bring it to a Japanese audience. Because the subject matter is onethat we often see in the media, it was easy to fit it into a composition within thescope of what we know. Ichikawa Nana, the translator, frequently stopped me as I
tried to add wording to clarify situations that were difficult to understand. I
think it was because Ms. Ichikawa sensed the importance of an “indistinguishability” that the writer was not stating outright.
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The troupe also carefully discussed how to present this play as a reading andhow the actors should perform it against a backdrop of images of actual humansuffering via television and the internet. The same holds true for other works, ofcourse, but no matter how much we read and imagined the material, there weremany aspects we could not fully grasp. I felt bad about acting as if I knew what I
was talking about, but a play cannot be conveyed by mere rote reading. In ourrehearsals, we searched for ways to utilize the “reading” format to strike a balance
between allowing everyone to become as involved with the characters as possible,
while at the same time presenting an objective point of view.
It is unfortunate that all our performances were canceled, but I remain
convinced that there are many things we could realize by performing this playnow. Keeping in mind the danger of oversimplifying complex situations to makethem easier to understand, I hope we can someday bring this work to audiences.

Ikuta, Miyuki
Director. Member of the theatre company Bungakuza and the theatre group Riseiteki-naHenzintachi. M.A. (Music), Tokyo University of the Arts. Among Japanese Centre ofInternational Theatre Institute productions, she directed “This is War” (Theatre Born inConflict Zones 10) and “Anatomy of a Suicide” (World Theatre Lab, 2021). Her recent
productions include “Girls in Crisis,” “Oroika Song,” and “The Architect and the Assyrian Emperor.”(Translation: Tony Gonzalez)

About the “Theatre Born in Conflict Zones” series

The International Theatre Institute sponsors a worldwide project titled “TheatreBorn in Conflict Zones” as an effort to promote peace through theatre. In 2009, theJapan Centre started its “Theatre Born in Conflict Zones” series as part of a survey andresearch project for the Theatre Yearbook. Through activities including translations,readings, lectures by writers and experts, and exhibitions over the past thirteen years,
this series has introduced 28 outstanding plays previously unknown in Japan. Since
the third year, we have also published collections of plays. If you would like to order
the latest edition or back issues containing translations of Viral Monologues, pleasecontact the Japanese Centre of International Theatre Institute. —The Editor

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This year’s performances were unfortunately canceled, but the following isa record of the reading performances that could not be presented:Theatre Born in Conflict Zones 14
Reading of “Bad Roads” (performances and distribution both canceled)
9–11 December 2022
Location: Proto-Theater
Archive distribution: 6 December 2022 (10:00 a.m.) through 9 January 2023 (11:59 p.m.)
Playwright: Natalia Vorozhbit
Translator: Ichikawa Nana
Director: Ikuta Miyuki (Bungakuza)
Performers: Ishimura Mika(Tegamiza), Iwao Kaishi, Kameda Yoshiaki (Bungakuza), Saito Atsushi(Haiyuza Theatre Company), Shibata Minami (Bungakuza), Terada Michie (Bungakuza), Nishioka Mio
Producer: Hayashi Hideki

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As a volume separate from the Theatre Yearbook 2023, we publish
Collected Plays, which contains a Japanese translation of Bad Roads withcommentary by the translator. Please contact the Japanese Centre ofInternational Theatre Institute if you would like a copy.

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