Photo by Kikuko Usuyama

I liked ‘God Bless Baseball’ by the Japanese director Toshiki Okada because:

– I like Japanese slow cinema but this is the first time I’ve seen this slow pacing from the Japanese theatre production.

– The performers’ body movement was nice so many times I didn’t want to move my eyes from the performance to the surtitles but I have to because the script was very intersting as well.

– Many points popped up in my head while the text flew by, for example: post-colonialism, generation, gender… but I cannot understand all aspects and their contexts completely because of my limited knowledge about American, Japanese and South-Korean social and historical background. However, I can connect the performance to my experience from my life in my country, Thailand.

– The word ‘father’ in the performance makes me think of father of the nation in Thailand. The performers’ body in the performance make me think of geo-body of the nation that is not our own.

GOD BLESS BASEBALL
Playwright and Director: Toshiki Okada
9 + 10 June 2016, Festival Theaterformen
www.chelfitsch.net