NEW ILLUSION
chelfitsch/Toshiki Okada
The performance by the renowned Japanese director and writer Toshiki Okada and his company chelfitsch is part of the EIZO Theater series. EIZO Theater describes a new style of theater that touches on the origins of theater in an innovative way and challenges the audience’s imagination.
In ‘New Illusion’, the latest piece in the EIZO theater series, the audience meets the projection of two actors. The two of them are talking about a play that was being performed in this theater until the day before and is set in the room where they lived together for a long time. But is what the two of them are talking about a play and therefore fiction, or is it their actual life and therefore reality? In ‘New Illusion’, the fictional space projected on the screen and the real space of the theater continually overlap and for a moment the audience feels the presence or absence of the two actors who were actually (not) supposed to be there. ‘New Illusion’ oscillates in a virtuoso way between fiction and reality, present and past and presences and absences in space.
„Through my practice of EIZO-Theater thus far, I am now able to say with confidence that I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to accurately distinguish what is reality and what is illusion in this world. Perhaps you, too, will feel this way if you experience ‘New Illusion’, the latest work of EIZO-Theater at this point in time.“ Toshiki Okada on EIZO-Theatre
Duration: ca. 1 h
Language: Japanese, English
Ticket Special
Double Pack:
If you attend two events on the same evening, you will receive a 50 per cent discount on the cheaper of the two events. Can only be booked via the visitor centre.*
*This offer is only available for performances and times pre-selected by HELLERAU.
EIZO-Theater is a new type of theater that Toshiki Okada has begun to develop in recent years together with Shimpei Yamada, a stage and video designer. In EIZO-Theater, Okada has discerned enormous possibilities for expanding the latent potential of the very medium of theater. Operating on a level beyond that of technique and form, EIZO-Theater theatrically grasps the characteristics inducing sensory experience, such as the way audiences stare at human beings (actors) in the video images and the peculiar presence that their projected images possess. As of the present, this type of theater is called “EIZO-Theater.”
chelfitsch was founded in 1997 by Toshiki Okada, who writes and directs all of the company’s productions. In 2007 the company made its first foray overseas, performing “Five Days in March” at Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Since then, the company has performed works in over 90 cities worldwide. Many of its creations result from commissions and international coproductions with the world’s leading festivals and theaters including Festival d’Automne Paris in France and Austria’s Wiener Festwochen. In recent years the company has begun working with a new form of theater, “EIZO-Theater,” together with stage and video designer Shimpei Yamada. EIZO-Theater is an attempt to transform exhibition spaces etc. into performance spaces by challenging the audience’s senses and imagination with the projection of life-size images of the performers onto a screen. Since 2021 chelfitsch has worked on the initative “Theater project with non-native Japanese speaker.”
Toshiki Okada is known for his methodology surrounding the unique relationship between language and the body and was awarded the 49th Kishida Kunio Drama award for “Five Days in March” in 2005. Since 2016 he has created and directed works in a repertory program at a renowned public theater in Germany for consecutive seasons. In recent years he has proactively collaborated with artists in a variety of fields, expanding the range of his activities to include projects such as directing the opera “Yuzuru” in 2021, and writing and directing a Kabuki performance for the Kinoshita-Kabuki production “Sakurahime Azuma no Bunsho” (“The Scarlet Princess of Edo”) in 2023. As a novelist, he won the 2nd Oe Kenzaburo Prize in 2007 with “The End of the Special Time We Were Allowed” (Shinchosha). In 2022 he was awarded the 35th Mishima Yukio Prize and the 64th Kumanichi Literary Award for “Broccoli Revolution” (Shinchosha). Okada will assume the posts of Artistic Director of Tokyo Festival from 2025 and Artistic Director (Performing Arts) of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre from 2026.
Shimpei Yamada
*To be updated
Playwright & Director: Toshiki Okada
Video Director: Shimpei Yamada
Cast: Tomomitsu Adachi, Ayana Shiibashi, Jeong Jung-yeop
Recording & Sound: Raku Nakahara (Luftzug）
Lighting: Masayoshi Takada (RYU), Kousuke Ashidano (RYU)
Lighting operator: Arisa Nagasaka (RYU)
Costume: Kyoko Fujitani (FAIFAI)
Stage Manager: Daijiro Kawakami, Marie Moriyama
Recording: Yuki Sato, OHSHIRO SOUND OFFICE Inc.
Video Assistant : Shiori Saito (AOZORA), Yuki Higuchi
Interpretation: Nawon Lee
English Translation: Aya Ogawa
German Translation: Prof. Dr. Andreas Regelsberger
Music: Jang Young-gyu
Commisioner: Ob/Scene Festival
Production: chelfitsch
Co-production: Asia Culture CenterPlanung
Planning and Production Management: precog co., LTD
In co-operation with: KU Inc. and office III’s
With the assistance of: The Saison Foundation
Supported by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan | Japan Arts Council, JLOX+
New Illusion is funded by the KdfS as part of “Who’s Your City”.
