A tense drama about the destruction of an individual, Friends
opens with the words of a popular romantic song, "Poor broken
necklace ... Little lost beads, little lost beads." A family then
enters the apartment of a young man, without invitation or
introduction, and announces they will save hi~n from his
lone-liness by moving in and befriending him. Restringing the
"little lost beads" is their mission. Shocked by the strange
invasion,the young man first of all tries to persuade them to
leave. But his reasoning proves useless against their cheerful
madness, as it does with the policeman whom he then calls. Slowly
and effec-tively, the family strips the young man of his reasons
for living:his fiancee, his self-esteem, and his interest in his
work. They do everything possible to convince him, in the name of
brother-hood and love, that his desire for privacy and his choice
of companions is an aberration.
This unusual variation on the Theater of the Absurb, more formal
than its Western counterparts, has been skillfully trans-lated by
Donald Keene, one of the foremost translators of Japanese works
into English.