Ohaiyo gozaimas!  Monday morning, September 8th.  My alarm goes off at 4.55 a.m.  This was the first night in quite a while that I didn’t drop straight off to sleep.  I lay awake, trying to relax, counting sheep, doing deep breathing exercises, you name it,  but to no avail.  Well, this was the eve of a long-planned trip to Japan with my play about Hiroshima, ‘The Mistake’.  Who could be calm with that prospect ahead?  

I’ve been trying to learn some basic Japanese for the last six weeks – not easy – but it’s been really useful – and actually a lot of fun.  I can now say ‘of course’, ‘good idea’ and ‘if it’s alright with you’, along with many other useful phrases and words.  But will I be able to have a conversation in Japanese? – not a cat in hell’s chance.  However, I am very much looking forward to using one of the most pointless phrases given to me on the online course I’ve been following – yes, you guessed… ‘I bought these cream puffs at the neighbourhood bakery.’  

Of course (mochiron) I’ll have to find said bakery first and then buy those aforementioned cream puffs, before accosting some unsuspecting Japanese person on the street, holding up my bag and saying… ‘Kono Chou-cureemu wa kinjono panyai de kaimashita!’

Anyway, it’s now 6.25 a.m. as I lug the same three large, portentous suitcases that journeyed to Chicago and back in April  – down the two flights of stairs from my flat to await the cab I’ve booked.  With ‘9000 Cars’.  I’m relieved to say that despite it being a Monday morning and there being tube strikes taking place, there aren’t yet too many cars on the roads – certainly not 9,000.

Nor is Terminal 3 at Heathrow particularly busy – and as we are allowed two checked cases each on Japan Airlines, (unlike when we travelled to Chicago), there will be no excess to pay as our 5 cases and 1 tatami mat in total are spread between myself, Riko and associate producer Maria – who accompanies us again as she did to the USA.  

At the check-in desk I sense my shoulders relax and that magnificent feeling of liberation washes over me as our huge, heavy cases trundle away from us onto the conveyor belt.

At security, even my solid uranium sphere (aka silver boule) makes it through without so much as a twitch from the surveying officers. 

There are of course many pleasurable aspects to travelling and to touring, but I remind myself that we are here to take a very serious play to Japan, a play about the first atomic bomb and its devastating consequences, which later in September we will even perform in Hiroshima itself.  As I had to keep reminding myself on our US adventure, I am travelling first and foremost as performer and playwright, not as a tourist. 

Now, there’s long haul, and there’s extra long haul.  To break up our extra long haul I have booked us to go via Helsinki.  A chance to stretch my extra long legs – and more!  What a lovely airport!  Calm, serene, and with a Quiet Space/ Living Room which has bean bags for a nap, comfy chairs, a meditation/prayer space and a room with a soft carpet for stretching and doing yoga on – as recommended by the wall posters.  I have the place to myself, and do some yoga which feels so good.

I then go to the loo and there is birdsong playing.  I’m definitely coming back here again.

Then it’s onto our long connecting flight and next stop Tokyo.  I’ve paid £100 for extra legroom but it’s on the aisle and the service trolleys brushing past me make me a little nervous.  It’s a long, tedious flight, with scratchy, broken sleep, but the time passes.  

Then we’re through customs, we’re reunited with our vast cases again and are greeted by Jalani, our wonderful young Tokyo associate on this tour, and her husband Toshi – who somehow manages to cram all the cases in the back of his vehicle.  

We then drive through the longest road tunnel I’ve ever experienced, (London’s Blackwall Tunnel, eat your heart out) and eventually emerge into the vibrant city of Tokyo.  I ask Maria to pinch me. She does.  Ouch!!!

But it’s true.  We’re actually here.  To perform a play which will have such a profound emotional resonance for Japanese audiences.  And we’ll perform it in a new bilingual version, with Riko speaking all her 1945 survivor role in Japanese and her role as a modern Japanese woman in search of answers in English.  

A huge challenge for her but she’s definitely up to it. 

We drop the set, props and costumes off at Studio Actre, a perfect little 70-seat theatre, our venue for 9 performances, and meet Yuri-san who seems to be a young Japanese renaissance man, running the venue, creating and operating the lighting design, doing DIY around the place, and even making sure the restrooms are clean and presentable. 

Maria has family in Tokyo but Riko and I each have an apartment booked in a small block. In fact an incredibly small apartment in a very small block.

I’m so glad I decided against bringing a cat.  There would be no room to swing it in.  And the heat!  The humidity!  How does the aircon work?  It’s not obvious to me – and all the clues are in Japanese, and reading Japanese is a whole other ball game from trying to speak it.  But Riko comes to the rescue – and as a result that night I will have the opportunity to sleep in something resembling a fridge. 

But first an evening stroll, enjoying the lively streets of Nakano, where we are staying, north-west of the city.  I watch a man, doing an incredible balancing act on bricks and circular rubber tubes perched on top of a high rostrum near the station watched by a crowd of fascinated onlookers.  

Then after a Japanese supper it’s back to the fridge and as I drift off towards sleep, hoping to conquer my jet lag, I realise I haven’t yet located my neighbourhood bakery!  I also think back to the man doing the amazing balancing act.  He was no longer in the flush of youth.  And I’m reminded of my own demanding balancing act, trying to pull off these two tours to the USA and Japan.

 Well, we managed to pull off the US tour… and in the morning, if I haven’t been frozen into an immovable block of ice, we’ll start our Japanese adventure.