Out of the Shadow: The Peace Trees of Hiroshima is an audio drama written by Karien Polley, and presented by Polley Productions, which will be broadcast on Fine Music Radio at 12 noon on 16 December 2020, the Day of Reconciliation.
Among its themes are survivors’ guilt, collective responsibility, reconciliation and world peace. The play takes place in 1945, 1975 and 2020.
In 1975 a Californian botanist, Prof David Bloch (Matthew Roberts) visits Hiroshima to study the Ginkgo trees which survived the H-bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 during WWII. It is the 30th Anniversary of the bomb (the “Pikadon”). He is hosted by a Japanese arborist, Kazuki Tanaka (Adrian Galley), who is part of the Peace Movement, and Kazuki’s daughter, Aki (Lee-Ann van Rooi), also a botanist, who harbours resentment towards the Americans: she lost both her mother and young brother to the bomb.
The dramatic conflict is found chiefly in the tension between David and Aki and their path towards personal and wider reconciliation.
The drama was recorded at the SABC on 14 November 2020. Nigel Vermaas directed with the ever-reliable Cassi Lowers on the desk, and Kyoko Kimura Morgan in attendance as language adviser.
The broadcast coincides with the recent UN Ban on nuclear weapons. (October 2020).
What: Out of the Shadow: The Peace Trees of Hiroshima
Where and when: Fine Music Radio on 16 December 2020 at 12 noon
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