Mr. Gambahar’s Experiment and Other Writings

'A mysterious lecturer claims he can hear anyone, anywhere, simply by using a signature. His radio experiment brings quarrels, courtship, danger, and overlapping conversations into the broadcast studio, until the lecturer turns his apparatus on the author himself.

Kishida Kunio’s inventive radio comedy anchors this collection of ten complete writings. In The Swing, a husband insists on telling his wife a dream while breakfast, dressing, and the journey to work keep interrupting him. Henriette’s diary follows a young woman sent away from Paris to recover her health. Other pieces sketch French women’s conversations, actors’ private habits, a Breton summer evening, and the peculiar freedom of painters’ studios.

Kishida, a central figure in modern Japanese theater, also considers French performance and the drama of Henri-René Lenormand. His mixture of wit, critical precision, and unease offers an intimate view of artistic and everyday life. These translations preserve the supplied texts in full, with stage directions, songs, and concise historical and textual notes.