I'm writing as the lights are focussed with a long pole*, and Sayuri San (who I have cast as the stage-servant) practises manipulating a glass cup above the light of the projector. Into the cup she will pour water and then droplets of ink - the black rain that fell after the bomb.
The audience will be sat on two sides in traverse, looking on to a wide long stage space which gives the cast of 21 space to run , and throws balls, and fire elastic projectiles.
Around the room are the props, 5 large brooms which silently sweep away the rivers of Hiroshima, narrow copper pipes that drip water, and tiny houses on stilts which light up behind the audience as Hiroshima is re-built.
In two hours the cast will arrive to get into costume. The magic of the space, equipped and theatrically lit will excite them and the adrenalin will kick in. The work they have done over the last two weeks, working 12 of the last 14 days, deserves this.
Meanwhile around the world, 10 other small groups are getting nervous about their reading of Grandchildren of Hiroshima. In Wimborne they will sit in a semi circle on the village green, in Brisbane beneath a sculpture of the bomb, 'Little Boy', made from fragments of Kimono sewn with hair, in Manilla they will share a meal, in Milwaukee it is part of a conference of educators, in Palestine it is being read in Arabic and televised, in Pune, Delhi, Bohol and Belgium plans are being finalised, and in Deptford in London, Bubble participants, actors and board members will hold a public reading at the Creekside Centre in Deptford.
Our best wishes from Hiroshima go to all those groups.
*actually after I wrote that, an electrician climbed up a tall ladder tied to a table top on wheels - frightening looking home made Tallascope, from which she is doing the 'Shoot' or focus.
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