6 men, 4 women

From acclaimed Japanese director/playwright Toshiki Okada, Artistic Director of the internationally-lauded chelfitsch Theatre Company, comes a chronicle of post-college ennui and 21st Century relationships in Japan's Lost Generation. The static lives of several self-obsessed GenX comic book store clerks are thrown out of balance by the presence of a younger female co-worker, who rightly makes them question the meaning of their lives in a shifting socio-economic landscape. Written in the hyper-colloquial style Okada has become famous for, this play met with massive critical praise upon its New York premiere.

Purchase Enjoy HERE through Samuel French.

English language premiere produced by the Play Company at 59E59 Theaters in 2010, directed by Dan Rothenberg.

Press:

Mr. Okada, with the help of a very deft translation by Aya Ogawa, makes sure that even if it take a while to communicate a thought, a mood of indulgence and despair emerges clearly. -- The New York Times [read original article]

Kudos for the offhanded brilliance of the transposed idiom in Enjoy goes to New York–based playwright Aya Ogawa, whose translation is fluid and delicious.  -- American Theatre Magazine [read original article]

Aya Ogawa’s effortless, idiomatic translation (surely the process of rabbinical focus)... -- Time Out New York [read original article]

Although it maintains its otherness, the beautiful translation by Aya Ogawa makes effective use of American colloquialisms and rings utterly true. -- Theatre Is Easy [read original article]

What Okada is getting at – and what Ogawa and Rothenberg capture so well – is the poetry of the inarticulate. The language in the show is like a hyperreal poetics in which characters careen in and out of interior monologue, into dialogue, into exposition and back again. The characters are struggling to express themselves and interpret the interplay between their inner lives and the world around them.  -- Culturebot [read original article]

Having Dan Rothenberg (Chekhov Lizardbrain) direct and the hollowing, postmodern playwright Aya Ogawa (Oph3lia) translate is just icing on the cake. -- That sounds cool [read original article]

Aya Ogawa's brilliant translation meets the challenge of finding an English equivalent for Okada's highly colloquial Japanese... -- The New Yorker