Noda Map’s -320°F
A Faustian descent through myth, memory and other bad ideas.
Following sell-out productions of Love in Action (2024) and A Night at the Kabuki (2022) at Sadler’s Wells, Japanese theatre company NODA MAP will be returning to the venue 2 - 11 July with -320°F. Written by the founder of NODA MAP Hideki Noda, who will also direct and appear as one of the main cast, the show follows his reimagining The Brothers Karamazov in 2024 – resetting the Russian epic against the backdrop of Nagasaki in WWII and staging Romeo and Juliet with Queen songs. −320° opened in Tokyo on 10th April and will be at Sadler’s Wells in July for the company’s longest run to date. The London shows will all be performed in Japanese with English subtitles.
In a science-fiction story that asks ‘what is life’ when science and desire for betterment encroaches on God’s creation, the latest show from NODA MAP is a spectacle combining drama, music and dance, performed by a 25-strong ensemble. At an excavation led by a biotechnology professor, her assistant who has defied a 15-year life expectancy thanks to modern medicine and wants to repay the favour, searches for the mythical "Angel’s Bone", which their pharmaceutical corporate sponsor thinks it might be the key to youth and longevity. But their focus soon turns to the assistant as they believe that the vibrating bone in his right arm might be the key to tracing the Angel’s Bone. It opens a door to his genetic memory, taking them back and forth through time, from the modern world, to Middle Ages and an ancient era. −320° is a battle of ideas following the Faustian theme of whether desire for more is a creative or destructive force, and about whether science’s goals to enhance humanity will end up damning it.
Hideki Noda said, “I feel we are in a world where we’re re-confronted by some things human beings ought to have solved before. We have more of simplistic technologies. I think the Professor represents a kind of dilemma science technology has. Like in the field of medicine, there are things that could be improved to save people, but at the same time, there are also things we shouldn’t touch. To live with the dilemma of science technology is a theme of this play.”
Where: Sadler’s Wells, London, EC1R 4TN
When: 2 – 11 July 2026
Tickets: From £15
Venue details
- Address:
- Sadler’s Wells
- Rosebery Avenue
- London
- EC1R 4TN