Anything but a consoling look back at that era, it bears out, instead, the first line of the program notes, written by Mr. The Tayu in ''Hiroshima Maiden'' will not tell the story of Michiko and the Pilot, but rather a seemingly unrelated narrative of an American boyhood from 1955. In traditional bunraku, the voices of the puppets are spoken and sung by the Tayu, a narrator who also provides exposition and commentary. I'm worried that puppetry is becoming the new black, but I am thankful that it's on the radar.'' ''I'm a little sheepish saying all this because I'm fairly new to the form. Hurlin confessed to some wariness on this point. Hurlin): the Broadway musical ''Avenue Q'' and Paula Vogel's play ''The Long Christmas Ride Home'' the films ''Being John Malkovich'' and ''Illuminata.'' Mr. Such universality might account for a proliferation of Object Theater pieces (''the new, cool puppetry parlance,'' according to Mr. The audience will use their imaginations to fill in the missing steps. But what's really going on is an act of projection. You see a puppet do it and you say, 'I know that!' What surprises everyone is how expressive they are. You watch an actor wipe his nose and think nothing of it. ''They're immediately more engaging to me than a live actor. Hurlin - who teaches puppetry, along with dance and performance art, at Sarah Lawrence College - explained in an interview last month at a diner in Dumbo. ''Puppets are a better mirror of our own selves,'' Mr. It is performed in the style of bunraku, the centuries-old Japanese puppet theater. Live actors of any sort, in fact, are incidental to the production. ''Hiroshima Maiden'' is the first of his pieces in which Mr. Yamaoka - who, just 15 years old in 1945, is now in her 70's - will be on hand for select performances and will answer questions from the audience. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, where it is scheduled to run through Feb. The result, ''Hiroshima Maiden,'' is built around two characters: the Pilot, based on Lewis, and Michiko, somewhat loosely based on Ms. ''The idea that bubbles to the surface most often is the one I often end up making.'') (''I have three or four ideas percolating all the time,'' he said. ''It was never really clear to me how countries - Germany, for instance - can collectively 'face their past.' '' As he puzzled over that issue, he started to formulate a play. ''I started to think about cultural reconciliation,'' he explained recently by e-mail. Hurlin was ''slack-jawed with amazement'' at the story. I wrote down later,'' and here Lewis rakes his fingertips across his forehead as he fights for composure, his voice almost faltering: '' 'My God. And there, in front of our eyes, the city of Hiroshima disappeared. He goes on: ''Shortly after, we turned back to see what had happened. 6, 1945, while Tanimoto nods as if in commiseration: ''At 8:15 promptly, the bomb was dropped,'' he says. Lewis is a barrel-chested man in a light-colored jacket, his prominent brow casting his eyes in shadow. A brief clip of the program, which survives in a Hiroshima documentary titled ''After the Cloud Lifted,'' shows a monumentally awkward meeting, with all parties civil and subdued. He was later found at a bar.ĭespite that interruption, the encounter proceeded as planned. Hurlin, Lewis was not initially told that he would be meeting with survivors before the taping began, he realized what the producers had in mind and fled the studio. Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that had dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima 10 years before.Īccording to Mr. What struck him in particular was a detail that seems a fabrication straight out of Kurt Vonnegut, or would, but for the existence of archival television film: while in New York, Tanimoto, along with his wife and children and some of the women, appeared on the television show ''This Is Your Life.'' There they met face to face with Capt. The performance artist and director Dan Hurlin first heard of the Hiroshima Maidens, as they were touted in the press, from a friend, the historian David Serlin, who came upon their story while researching a book. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Methodist minister in Hiroshima. They were accompanied on their trip by the Rev. IN 1955, a group of 25 Japanese girls and young women who had been disfigured by the effects of the atomic blast in Hiroshima were flown to New York City to undergo reconstructive surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital.