No More Bystanders: Grandchildren of Hiroshima and the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb

2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the American atomic bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Amidst the commemorations in Hiroshima, London Bubble Theatre staged a performance created by an intergenerational Japanese cast from interviews with elders who experienced the day. Grandchildren of Hiroshima, in its performance and devising, troubled the idea of a nuclear war “bystander,” proposing that in fact there are no more bystanders, and all are participants in the history of the bombs’ performative power.