You wouldn’t expect a children’s play to address the Hiroshima bombings, or deep-dive into conversations around existentialism and the purpose of life. But with the right amount of souzou — Japanese for imagination, and the title of Gillo Repertory Theatre’s upcoming play, it might just be within reach. As director Barkha 
Fatnani puts it, “Kids will be entertained, and parents will have some interesting questions to answer on their way home.”

The two-act play has traversed diverse landscapes before making its way to the city venue. The seed of the first play, Hermit Crab’s Dream, was sown in 
Fatnani’s mind at a storytellers’ residency in South Korea in 2017, and germinated into a play when she returned to the city with a changed worldview. “A Japanese storyteller narrated a story of a hermit crab that loses its shell, and with it, his ability to dream. The story was simple but managed to shed light on the Hiroshima bombings and environmentalism in a way that was far from distressing,” she recalls.