Near future, summer. The lounge of a sanatorium on a plateau, where fatal patients spend their time.

Time flows slowly here, completely separated from the life down below. The meaning of waiting for death is casually unfurled on stage.

The patients' concepts of death and time are different from that of the visitors.

From S Plateau premiered in 1991 and has been performed both in Japan and internationally, becoming one of signature works for both SEINENDAN and myself. Especially in France, it was staged at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg and has been revived many times since, becoming a popular hit.

When I wrote this play, Japan was still feeling the aftereffects of the bubble economy, and a giddy atmosphere was drifting everywhere. I didn’t quite belong to that era, so I wanted to depict the quiet moments just before the death of those passing away on the plateau. That’s how this work came to be.

This work is based on The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, whom I greatly admire, and HORI Tatsuo’s novel Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises). Many of you may be familiar with Kaze Tachinu, as it inspired Studio Ghibli’s animated film of the same name.

In the novel Kaze Tachinu, the phrase ‘The joy of life that arises when everyone believes they have come to a dead end’ is repeated. In this play, the beginning and end of love unfold in various forms that differ from the norm. I hope you enjoy this small variation.

HIRATA Oriza

Seinendan is a theater company formed by Oriza Hirata in Tokyo in 1983. We have been pursuing a new theatrical style through the practice of Hirata's "contemporary colloquial theater theory.” His radically novel style has had a strong influence on Japanese theater since the 1990s as well as across literature, linguistics and language education. Since 2020, we have been conducting a diverse range of performance activities nationwide, with the Ebara Riverside Theatre in Toyooka City, Hyogo Prefecture serving as our new base.