Chelfitsch: Five Days in March

Chelfitsh is an alternative theater group from Japan. The narrative of Five Days in March is a simple story of what was going on in lives of several 20-ish Japanese people during the US invasion of Iraq. The invasion is a backdrop to tales of coupling, music and protests. The script is Japanese with projected supertitles in English.

The key part of the performance is the theatricality of it. The performers dress and talk naturalisticaly and the set is almost completely bare. The store is told in repeating cycles with overlapping performers voicing the first-person narratives of the characters. The actors gesture and walk in partially movements repeated in cycles. Hard to describe in words: a performer drops his arm in a casual style, then lifts it and drops it again and again while talking.

I liked the show. The story was humorous and mildly titillating enough to hold interest. It was confusing to follow due to the changing performers and repeating narrative. This confusion surprisingly became enjoyable as it combined with the physical movement of the performers.

After the show I realized it reminded me of minimalistic theater movements I learned about in college. I had never seen such a show live and it seems like Chelfitsch is a contemporary follower of that. I enjoyed how Five Days in March focused strongly on movement and language and the memory of that stayed with me afterwards.