In the ruptures and fissures of a disaster, hope springs eternal.

Confined to a room, the ghost of a woman, her surviving husband and his new partner are attempting to cope with the devastating effects of the 2011 earthquake in Japan. The ghost, suspended in the days immediately following the disaster, embodies the fleeting feeling of euphoria post-Fukushima as dreams of a better future take hold. Her husband and his lover, facing the reality of life six years on, are haunted by grief, and the excruciating loss of hope and unrealised transformation.

Founded in 1997, chelfitsch is led by writerdirector Toshiki Okada, widely regarded as one of Japan’s most significant contemporary theatre makers and innovators.

In Time’s Journey Through a Room, Okada’s meticulous, unflinching eye for detail, idiosyncratic choreography, hyper-colloquial Japanese and inventive soundscapes are beautifully melded to reveal the innumerable, tiny fractures buried in the shockwaves of grief, creating a mesmerising and poetic portrait of mental anguish.