Some theatrical works transcend their historical moment to speak across generations. Hisashi Inoue's The Face of Jizo, returning to Sydney's Reginald Theatre in the Seymour Centre after a sold-out run at the Old Fitz in 2023, is undoubtedly one such work. Heralded by cultural critic Saiichi Maruya as "the greatest play of Japan's postwar era," this intimate two-hander arrives at a time when its questions about memory, forgiveness, and the cost of war feel urgently contemporary.
The play's return carries particular weight, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and following the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo for their advocacy for nuclear disarmament. These contexts lend the production a gravity that extends beyond theatrical entertainment into the realm of collective memory and moral responsibility.
Set three years after the bombing of Hiroshima, the story follows Mitsue, a young librarian, as she confronts her father Takezo after a three-year absence. Their reunion forces a reckoning with the truth of what happened on 6 August, 1945, when the atomic bomb fell. In Inoue's hands, this becomes not just a personal reconciliation but a meditation on how trauma echoes through families and communities.
The Face of Jizo refuses to indulge in simple victimhood narratives. As director and performer Shingo Usami notes, the production is "not about denying the pain Japan inflicted on so many people during the war but about facing them with honesty and reflection." This moral complexity elevates the work beyond propaganda into genuine art.
The production benefits from the continuity of its creative team, with Usami (known for his work on Apple TV+'s Invasion) directing alongside David Lynch, and reprising his role as Takezo opposite Mayu Iwasaki's Mitsue. Iwasaki, whose recent credits include NCIS: Sydney and Sydney Theatre Company's White Pearl, brings a contemporary sensibility to Mitsue's journey of discovery and reconciliation.
The decision to present selected performances in Japanese with English surtitles adds another layer of authenticity to the production. Language carries cultural memory in ways that translation, however skillful, cannot fully capture. Roger Pulvers' translation has been praised for its sensitivity to both linguistic and cultural nuances, but hearing the work in its original Japanese offers audiences a more direct connection to its emotional core.
The play's structure as a two-hander creates an intimacy that serves its themes well. In the confined space of the Reginald Theatre, audiences become witnesses to a private reckoning that carries public significance. The father-daughter dynamic allows Inoue to explore how historical trauma passes between generations, and how love can coexist with painful truths.
The production's success at the Old Fitz, where it was twice extended, suggests Sydney audiences are hungry for work that grapples seriously with difficult history. In an era of increasing geopolitical tension and nuclear anxiety, The Face of Jizo offers neither easy answers nor comfortable reassurances. Instead, it asks how we continue telling the hardest stories to the next generation, a question that resonates far beyond its specific historical context.
The play's blend of personal drama and historical weight recalls the best of post-war Japanese literature and cinema, where individual stories become lenses through which to examine collective trauma. Inoue's achievement lies in creating characters who feel fully human rather than symbolic, whose struggles with memory and forgiveness feel authentic rather than didactic.
Theatre's power lies in its ability to make the historical personal and the personal universal. The Face of Jizo demonstrates this alchemy at its finest, transforming one family's reckoning with an unthinkable event into a meditation on resilience, love, and the possibility of healing without forgetting.
The Face of Jizo runs at the Reginald Theatre at the Seymour Centre from 21 August to 6 September, with selected performances in Japanese with English surtitles.
More detials and tickets: https://www.seymourcentre.com/event/the-face-of-jizo/
(images: supplied)
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