Drama "Reunion" on Japanese Aggression Against China to Be Staged in AmericaA drama called "Reunion" which portrays the Japanese invasion against China during the World War II, will be staged in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and other American cities in August and September.The playwright, Watanabe Yosiharu has been invited to the US to a press conference for the explanation of the drama. Yosiharu's father used to be a Japanese officer in the "Manchuria", and war made his father extremely brutal and cruel. His neighbors despised them when his father became a war criminal. After his father was dead and his mother committed suicide, he became aware that it was his father's wrongdoing to blame for all the misfortunes his family encountered. Therefore, he came to China to find out what his father had done, and also called on many Japanese women who stayed on in China after the war. He learned about the atrocities committed by Japanese "7.31 Germ Troop" and witnessed photos of the massacre by Japanese soldiers, and he felt ashamed and unease to learn all that. Through talking to those Japanese women, he also learned that those women, in order to redeem the Japanese militarists' wrongdoing in China, stayed on here to live a new life. To save his soul, Yosiharu created the Reunion, hoping that the drama can reflect his exploration and discovery of what the Japanese militarists' aggressive war had done to China. He also hopes to express how the Japanese people view about the after-war history so as to introspect the inhuman outrageous crimes committed by Japanese militarists. The drama has been staged for 195 times within 9 years with a total of 10,000 audience watching it. However, it has met with many attacks from Japanese opponents. The group supporting the new Japanese textbook even faxed the script of the play to educators, accusing him a Chinese spy. However, Yosiharu said that he was not to be scared at all, and he thought he has responsibility to record a real history on the Japanese aggression against China. The drama was staged in Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, Beijing and other Chinese cities too. By PD Online staff member Li Yan |
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