Letters from Chiran | Tomoya Kawamura

LETTERS FROM CHIRAN

Next Show:

16 October 2026

20:00

Venue: Cordillera

"Letters from Chiran" is a mask theatre storytelling played by Tomoya Kawamura, created and written with Francesco Procopio, inspired freely by the historical facts of the last world war and the stories left behind by young Japanese soldiers at the local “Shokudo” (canteen) just outside the military airbase of Chiran in southern Japan.

The play delicately unveils the difference of perspectives between the lives of ordinary people in the midst of a largely devastating war and those, who lightly make the decision of joining a conflict, compromising the lives of millions in the name of false ideals and personal satisfaction.

In 1945 the pilots of the Japanese Special Attack Units, commonly known as “Kamikaze”, while having a meal or a green tea, would share with the owner of the “Shokudo” some of their stories, their doubts, their last wishes and dreams, before beginning what was, for many of them, their last mission.

Becoming those ordinary people, Tomoya Kawamura, tells us her story and the one of the far too young “Kamikaze” pilots, in times where it seemed reasonable to somebody, to send the youngest generation of a nation to die in vain, in a completely senseless mission during an already lost war.

The question comes spontaneously: Is there any scenario where this sacrifice is acceptable?