Belgian premiere, via Utopia Parkway.
Interesting news about "Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech", a Japanese-language play coming to the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater on September 28 and 29. A summary, from the theater's website:
Hot Pepper captures the malaise of young low-level office workers in three quirky scenes set in an office break room. In the sharp and visually vibrant world of write-director Toshiki Okada, twenty-something co-workers wrestle with issues as mundane as selecting a restaurant for lunch or the temperature of the office. Okada mixes dark humor, absurdity, and a disctint musical backdrop by John Coltrane, Stereolab and John Cage to capture the empty and ungrounded nature of Generation Y. Characterized by a seemingly insubstantial narrative accompanied by exaggerated gestures-turned-choreography, the groundbreaking works of chelfitsch (Five Days in March and Enjoy) have drawn global recognition, making them a leading theater company in Japan and abroad. In Japanese with English supertitles.Very good news, if a couple years late---the play opened in North America in 2009 in New York, Columbus, Minneapolis, Seattle, Vancouver, and St. Louis---because this type of thing would always skip right over Pittsburgh. The theater is at 5941 Penn Avenue (map), accessible (for now) by city bus 71B.
