High school students in Fukushima Prefecture will stage an emotionally charged play that gives voice to the complicated feelings among young people in a prefecture wracked by a nuclear disaster.
High school students in Fukushima Prefecture will stage an emotionally charged play that gives voice to the complicated feelings among young people in a prefecture wracked by a nuclear disaster.
The play will be staged at the opening ceremony for the 35th All Japan High School Cultural Festival, to be held Aug. 4 in the city of Aizu-Wakamatsu. The festival will be held Aug. 3 -- 7 in various cities and towns in Fukushima Prefecture, including Fukushima, Koriyama, Aizu-Wakamatsu and Inawashiro.
The Asahi Shimbun is serving as a special sponsor for the event.
The words of the play are based on messages sent to the festival's executive committee from some 100 high school students in the prefecture. The messages reflect the broad array of emotions and lessons that have emerged from their experiences since the March 11 disaster: sorrow caused by the loss of what they cherished; anger over the nuclear accident; the painfulness of facing an uncertain future; lessons learned from a difficult situation. These messages have been weaved into a powerful dramatic narrative by Yoshiko Nozaki, a 49-year-old director born in Koriyama.
The one-hour theatrical performance will be staged by 33 students of three high schools in the prefecture--Asakakaisei, Ishikawa and Aizu-Wakamatsu Xaverio--who have been learning the art of stage acting.
An orchestra of 74 players and a chorus of 218 singers will perform music for the play.
"There were so many vivid words in the messages," said Nozaki. "They expressed their feelings so wonderfully that I barely had to rephrase them."
The stage will be littered with debris. As the student actors face the audience while saying, "Hang in there, Fukushima" in local dialect, they turn the debris into artistically rendered cherry blossoms.
At the beginning of the drama one character says, "I feel hesitation about doing things I used to enjoy a lot. Since the earthquake, I have lost the sense of what I'm thinking and feeling at the moment."
The character is played by Mai Kaneda, a 16-year-old student at Asakakaisei Senior High School. "These words resonate with my current sentiment," Kaneda says. They struck her most when she first read the script. She volunteered first to deliver the lines.
Many members of the school's drama club were reluctant to confront the problem of nuclear power generation. Kenta Konno, a 17-year-old in his senior year, has been leading the team by urging the members to express all their thoughts and feelings about the issue to send out messages.
Despite high temperatures, Konno continues to wear a mask, a goggle, a hat and long-sleeved shirts.
Several days after the Great East Japan Earthquake, he went to the house of his grandparents in Namie, a town in the prefecture. He found the town empty of people. He can't forget the eerie tranquility in the place.
"I'm worried about the future, wondering if the same could happen again, causing people to experience what we have gone through," Konno says.
In mid-July, the three high schools held a joint training camp in the town of Inawashiro.
As a dosimeter didn't show a high level of radiation, Konno went out one night to watch the sky. His juniors in school followed him. It was probably the first time since the March disaster that he gazed at the sky.
"I had been wanting to see stars for some time. It was beautiful."
Konno is to deliver the last line in the drama. He is a little worked up.
"We will join hands, live now to the full and build a great future together."