Mum&Gipsy is a theatre company founded in 2007 by Takahiro Fujita, one of the youngest directors of the “zero generation”. In Japan’s contemporary theatre world, this new generation of directors and playwrights have come on the scene after the advent of Oriza Hirata’s colloquial spoken-language theatre style.
Hirata, director, playwright but also essayist and professor, is the founder of the “contemporary colloquial theatre”, a theatrical style that eschews theatre conventions in favour of “a theatre that is a direct portrayal of the world” and, through the use of simple dialogues, recreates and re-enacts everyday life on stage.
Following the theory of Hirata, Takahiro Fujita, who has been his pupil at Obirin University and directing assistant, has created his own style which is characterized by a new methodology in which story lines develop in parallel through a complex interweaving of scenes. Symbolic scenes are repeated in the form of “refrains” that are presented from different characters’ perspectives, much like the technique of quickly shifting scenes in a movie. This method also makes creative use of the “physical transformations” that occur in the actor during these shifting perspectives.
In recent years Fujita’s main creative theme is people’s memories.
This work shows how the “original scenes” or “memories” as well as language and culture work with the foreign audience under theatre director Takahiro Fujita’s unique construction of work.
Dots, lines and the cube starts from a news story. In a small town in 2001, a man was reported to kill a little girl. The body was found in a ditch and the news had repercussions on local young generation. This piece lively presents those boys and girls of 2001, ten years later in 2011 and the very current moment in their lives of 2013. Fujita reproduces characters’ memories and events in a mixed chronological format using number of conspicuous refrains.

author and director: Takahiro Fujita
actors/performers: Aya Ogiwara, Shintaro Onoshima, Ayumi Narita, Satoshi Hasatani, Jitsuko Mesuda, Satoko Yoshida
music support: Yoshio Otani
light design: Kaori Minami
sound design: Rie Tsunoda
stage director: Susumu Kumaki
tour manager: Yuko Uematsu
translator: Miwa Monden
company manager: Kana Hayashi
production: Mum & Gypsy
co-production: Steep Slope Studio
with the support of The Saison Foundation
special thanks to Yokohama Arts Platform Steep Slope Studio with the patronage of Fondazione Italia Giappone

[photo: Ilaria Costanzo Photographer]