play was adapted to theater from Tsutsui Yasutaka's novel Mushiriai (Plucking at Each Other). In 2006, The Bee was first staged in English by Soho Theatre and NODA MAP, and in 2007 in Japan by NODA MAP. He is currently in charge of The New National Theatre, where he works as a director. His plays focus on including celebrities to attract a wider audience rather than experimenting with different forms. Even though he primarily focuses on who he casts to play characters, "he brings in new audiences aplenty and also surreptitiously manages to sneak in satirical themes that only someone with his calibre could." He became artistic director at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in 2009. Style The most notable characteristics of Noda's plays are his use of limericks and word play. He frequently uses obsolete and old terminology from famous pieces of classical literature as if they were modern-day terms. This helps to create a separate world in which his plays can exist – apart from the reality of the audience. His plays, while often dealing with cliché or everyday topics, try to present the issues in a new way, and his use of old and odd language helps to emphasize the play's theme. Noda was initially interested in revitalizing Japanese theater and to break away from the stylised theatre of Noh and Kabuki. His objective was to be as strange and entertaining as possible, touching on modern values, concerns and social issues. This resulted in a unique and highly stylized visual performance of design and movement. He often takes classical Japanese literature and plays and re-vitalizes them in a modern form. Works Noda's work falls into two periods: first from 1976 to 1992, with his Dream Wanderers theater company, and second in 1993, mainly with his Noda Map production company. From 1976 to 1992, Noda became famous for this "theater as a sport" approach to performance, showing off the high-speed, complex spectacles that celebrated "boyhood" to the audience. Some of his major productions are The Prisoner of Zenda Castle (Zenda-jō no toriko, 1981) and Here Comes the Wild Beast (Nokemono kitarite, 1984), which was characterized by zany wordplay, rapid-fire delivery, and frenetic movement. The turning point in Noda's career was in late 1992 while he was living in London. A year later, he founded Noda Map where he worked at kabukiand opera and produced his own plays. Noda's plays