At the end of their lives, two old friends meet and look back. After the war, they founded a small enterprise in a burned ruin in the devastated city of Tokyo. They dreamt of becoming the leading company in consumer electronics. They wanted to help reconstructing Japan and strengthen its pride and dignity, and they even planned to conquer the American market once.
“Heavenly Bento” tells the (almost true) story of two men and their creation. It is a story of friendship and power, genius and insanity, identity and assimilation, control and its loss. In the end there will be a kind of dinner. The audience is invited to enjoy an abstract bento box full of pictures and remembrances, anecdotes and stories, victories and defeats. A bento box full of life.

＜Selected Press Responses＞
" That is very amusing, because of the ritualized politeness, and because of the minimalist stage arrangement that is juxtaposed with a cool stream of video images, that floats around the feet of the performers.
The story itself is also interesting, ....
...highly convincing in terms of form....the sushi principle: rice and fish are arranged beautifully.
The international artist collective (Japan, Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria) undoubtedly has to be praised for their experiment between theater and electronic worlds...."
Tom Mustroph in Neues Deutschland, Berlin, August 20th, 2004

"Directors Hiroko Tanahashi and Max Schumacher create a multimedia performance style appropriate to the narrative of two pioneers of Japanese electronics.
...the technology used to present the piece fuses with the narrative...
... following from this larger metaphor, food is a literal element of the performance, but served up as such a clever surprise, it would be a pity to be a spoiler. There was some funky media interplay, images flashing on unexpectedly or things popping out of the set.
... was the personalities of the two actors. With warmth and subtle humour, they brought to life the two Japanese protagonists, their idiosyncrasies and vision,...
... humanism in any shape or form is a reassuring discovery."
Parvathi Nayar, Business Times Asia, SingaporeJune 17th, 2005

[Short Documentation Video]