Synopsis
Two Cities - The Bells of Nagasaki & The Mask of Hiroshima
Ernest Ferlita from Takashi Nagai & Ernest Ferlita
Published by Samuel French Inc
The Bells of Nagasaki
Based on the book by Takashi Nagai, a doctor who contracted leukemia, the play is set in the rubble of the Nagasaki cathedral in which hundreds of Christians died when the bomb exploded directly over its roof
Takashi Nagai wants to raise one of the cathedral bells that was buried beneath the rubble, and he solicits the help of a friend, Ichitaro Yamada, a soldier who survived the war only to return home to find his wife and five children dead
Nagai, a convert to Christianity, attempts to understand the catastrophe through the eyes of faith and to nourish hope and rekindle love in Yamada and every other survivor he can find
M3,F2 + chorus of one to four that serves as narrator and poet
The Mask of Hiroshima
Set seven years after the bombing, the play has to do with a couple who are expecting a baby, Shinji and Hisa Ishikawa
Both still wear the mask that the atomic bomb moulded to body and soul
The effects of radiation threaten Hisa's life, and her father urges an abortion
Why risk losing her, he asks his son-in-law, for a child who may not live?
In a dreamlike climax, Hisa loses her life, but the child lives
M3,F2 + chorus of one to four that serves as narrator and poet
REVIEWS
"Two Cities is an 'eloquent expression' of faith" ~ The New York Times