In this relation, the process by which Ōta and his group devised this theatre piece should be explained. Instead of writing a complete script, Ōta decided on the content of the scenes and their sequence and then chose artistic materials appropriate for those scenes to stimulate the imagination of the actors. These source materials were selected from various genres-poetry, fiction, drama, film, and painting. Ōta scripted some dialogue specifically for a couple of scenes -the two men drinking water in scene 2 and for the family in the scene 6-but used those lines as unspoken internal monologue. The actors were forbidden to deliver out loud the dialogue or any other literary piece in performance.
In his preface to the playscript, Ōta explains the method of rehearsal he and his company used:
What was drawn out [from the source materials] became the object of examination in rehearsal. What died was removed; what lived was allowed to flourish. Through the repetition of this scrutiny, the materials themselves lost meaning and faded into oblivion. I understand the process as follows: by using “indirect delimitations” a way of realization was found, and through the rehearsals a totally different directness was born. (1990, p. 151)
Quoted from essay written about of Mari Boyd‘s book Aesthetics of Quietude. Accessed from http://www.glopad.org/jparc/?q=en/node/23028
Tan Shou Chen 