PREVIEW

What: One Thousand Cranes

Where: Metro Studio, 1411 Quadra St.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday

Tickets: $18 to $31 (250-590-6291)

British theatre can be too complex. American theatre is "very loud and flashy."

And Canadian theatre?

Just right.

So says Toyoshi Yoshihara, who translated into Japanese One Thousand Cranes, an award-winning play by Vancouver playwright/critic Colin Thomas. Tokyo's Bukaza Theatre Company will stage the Japanese-language version, with English surtitles, Thursday and Friday at Metro Studio.

One Thousand Cranes premièred at Vancouver's Green Thumb Theatre in 1983. The play is about Sadako, a girl whose fatal bout of leukemia was caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. While undergoing treatment, Sadako folds 1,000 paper cranes in the hope her wish will be granted. Another character is Buddy, a Canadian boy living in modern times whose fear of nuclear war clouds his existence.

Yoshihara, 74, is a former Vancouver businessman who became Japan's leading translator of Canadian drama. He has translated more than 40 Canadian plays into Japanese. Yoshihara has translated the works of such leading playwrights as George F. Walker, Michel Tremblay and Daniel MacIvor. McGill University bestowed an honorary doctrate upon him in recognition of his efforts in promoting Canadian theatre.

The award-winning translator is now based in Tokyo after living in Canada for 41 years. He said he originally undertook his literary quest as a way of repaying Canadians for welcoming him as a businessman. (He is a former CEO of Komatsu Canada, selling industrial machinery.)

"Thanks to Canada, I succeeded in my business," Yoshihara said recently from Vancouver, where Bukaza Theatre's One Thousand Cranes was performed at the University of British Columbia. "Canadian people bought quite a lot of equipment from me."

Japanese people especially enjoy Canadian drama more than American or British theatre because it is easier for them to follow and understand, he said.

"Canadian theatre is very sincere and 'smells of soil,' so to speak. Canadian plays say things very straightforwardly."

Yoshihara said seeing plays by Canadian playwrights has helped the Japanese develop a more complex understanding of our country.

"Everybody has the idea of Canada being a country of lakes and mountains and trees. But some of the plays convey a different idea of Canada to people.

Poverty exists. People are not always rich and happy," he said.

"The Japanese people's perspective on Canada is changing."

achamberlain@timescolonist.com