Aya Ogawa Archives - TheaterScene.net

Aya Ogawa

Suicide Forest

March 6, 2020

This illustrates the biggest problem with "Suicide Forest": it takes on too many issues, jumping from social to sexual to mythological to intimate family subjects. Making the play even more difficult to understand is that it is performed in both Japanese and English. In addition there is some confusing cross-ressing. "Suicide Forest" is alternately funny, disgusting and moving, making it too often a tiring show to sit through despite its wealth of social commentary. The director Aya Ogawa kept the show rolling along but couldn’t make all the parts gel. [more]

Distant Observer: Tokyo/New York Correspondence

March 26, 2018

Noted theater artist John Jesurun wrote the opening sequence. From 2014 to 2017, Mr. Jesurun engaged in a collaboration with Japanese playwright and director Takeshi Kawamura. They each wrote alternating 10-minute sections with Aya Ogawa translating the Japanese portions into English. This technique is an homage to the Japanese poetical form renga where different authors contribute to a poem. [more]