A single voice descends on Ikebukuro’s West Exit as a powerful alien presence
Unleashed into the bustle of twilight, Kansai dialect sharply challenges existing values

While standing in Ikebukuro West Exit Park, waiting for someone I’m not particularly close to, I start to feel like a stalker trailing after my own emotions. Before long, I feel like a dog chasing its own tail (“Dog”). A passerby on the street tells me that the red marks left on my arm by the handles of my shopping bag look stylish (“Red”). I take a nap thinking, “I sleep like a baby monkey,” only to find myself the subject of gossip for being cuter than the kittens (“Cicada”). These three short works, brought together in Dadaruzu’s “Drooling Ferris Wheel,” veer towards a destination impossible to imagine from the beginning. The work will be presented at GLOBAL RING THEATRE.

Founded in 2018 by Emi Oishi, Dadaruzu has in recent years consistently presented works in which Oishi serves simultaneously as writer, director, and performer. Appearing on stage as herself, she takes on the role of a storyteller, guiding audiences through her stories in a Kansai dialect, delivered with a tangled, groovy rhythm on an otherwise empty stage. As spectators are carried along by her whimsical imagination, the theatrical worlds created through language respond to the absurdity of reality with their own form of absurdity. In this work, Oishi searches for words and narratives–those that capture the experience of living under the gaze of others and the influence of established values–while deliberately fragmenting them to resist being reduced to a single issue. The play won the 70th Kishida Kunio Drama Award in February 2026, bringing Dadaruzu widespread recognition.

Described by Toshiki Okada, Artistic Director of Autumn Meteorite Tokyo, as a “performance of extreme intensity that invades the audience’s comfort zone,” this production is sure to capture the attention of passersby as dusk falls over Ikebukuro West Exit.