Five Days in March (Sangatsu no Itsukakann)

Five Days in March
(Sangatsu no Itsukakann)
Premiere: 2004
Time: 1hr 20min.
Stages/Acts: 2/10
Casts：７ （M5/F2）
Written and Directed by Toshiki Okada

　 On March 21 (20th U.S. time), 2003, the U.S. armed forces began bombing Iraq. This play tells about the actions of young couples during the period of five days spanning two days prior to, and two days after March 21. What makes this play unique is that the actions of the young people are literally “told” rather than being “acted out” by the actors.
One of couples had just met at a live performance club in Roppongi and ended going straight from there to a hotel in Shibuya, where they spent five days in total. Going out to eat from time to time, the couple Minobe and Yukki suddenly found that they are seeing Shibuya with fresh new eyes. Then there is Minobe’s friend, the slightly weird girl Miffy and the boy Azuma whom they met at a movie theater. There are also two young men Yasui and Ishihara who are taking part somewhat half-heartedly, in an anti-war march in Shibuya.
The play’s style is carried out by seven actors come on stage as “Actor 1” and “Actor 2”, and proceed to take turns telling the audience the stories of the characters of the play, as if they had just heard the stories from the characters themselves. For example, here is what oneof the actors says: “OK. I guess I’ll begin telling the story of Five Days in March starting from day one. First of all, let's say this is set in March of last year, and this is a story of this guy named Minobe who wakes up one morning and realizes he’s in a hotel, and he’s like “Hey, I’m in a love hotel” and, not only that, there is a girl who is asleep beside him and he would say “I don’t know this chick”. In this way, the actors don’t play the roles of the characters, but simply relate their actions to the audience.
This work, which has no real plot or notable incidents occurring, is an attempt of a serious exploration of “present expression”. First of all, it removes the deceptive theatrical element of how skillfully actors can “act out a role”, and then it tries to eliminate the artificiality that always exists to some degree in lines spoken by the actors when they are clearly from a drama-like script.
As a work born at the end of a quest for the most sincere form of expression in the present, Five Days in March skillfully juxtaposes the grand-scale event of “War” and what can be called the almost insignificant in real daily life, giving form to the elusive sense of the present held by Japanese young people.