Arts

Bearing Witness: Ako Brings From Trinity to Trinity to New York in the Shadow of War and Remembrance

September 25, 2025

By: Tally Daniels

When Ako takes the stage at HERE Arts Center in From Trinity to Trinity, she carries more than a script. She carries the voice of Kyoko Hayashi, a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing who decades later stood on the scorched earth of the Trinity Site in New Mexico. Ako, founder of the bilingual theater company Amaterasu Za, sees this story not only as history but as a warning—made urgent by the world’s accelerating race for nuclear weapons.

“This year is the 80th anniversary of Nagasaki,” Ako said in a recent interview. “It’s a good time to bring this story to New York. Because right now, leaders are talking about nuclear power like it is a tool for politics. But nuclear is anti-human. It is threatening life itself. People don’t know how awful it is.”

At 14, Hayashi was working at the Mitsubishi Munitions Factory when the bomb fell. More than fifty years later, she traveled to the American desert where the first atomic weapon had been tested. In her writings, Hayashi described the silence of that landscape, where “nothing seemed alive.” The juxtaposition of Nagasaki and Trinity forms the spine of the play, translated into English by Eiko Otake, with Ako inhabiting Hayashi’s words.

“Hayashi carried radiation sickness her whole life,” Ako explained. “When she visited Trinity, she saw no trees, no living things. It was like another death. That perspective makes the piece heavier, but also more universal.”

For Ako, who recently appeared in FX/Hulu’s Shogun, the hardest task was restraint. “I try not to show too much emotion,” she said. “If I cry, the audience steps back. I want them to come close, to feel the story with me. That is more difficult than playing my own experience.”

Bearing Witness: Ako Brings From Trinity to Trinity to New York in the Shadow of War and Remembrance

Photo Courtesy: Ako / From Trinity to Trinity

Ako views theater as a vessel for testimony at a time when survivor voices are fading. “We artists keep the stories alive,” she said. “If anyone invites me, I go anywhere to tell this story. Because if we don’t, it disappears. And then people repeat the mistake.”

The company she founded, Amaterasu Za, is dedicated to cross-cultural, bilingual storytelling. “Usually, we performed in Japanese,” Ako noted. “But here, we wanted Americans to hear directly, to understand. The translation helps balance the Japanese feeling with the American audience. I am on stage for 45 minutes. I realize I must do this play now. Later may be too late—for me, for the world.”

Ako’s parents raised her on war stories—her father served in the military and described soldiers starving, children dying. Those memories, layered with today’s wars in Ukraine and Gaza, push her urgency. “It is unfair,” she said.

While From Trinity to Trinity runs through October 5, Ako’s vision stretches forward. She dreams of staging Shakespeare with six Asian actors from different countries, each performing in their native language. “Every language has its rhythm,” she said. “Put them together, it is like a new music. That is the future I want to make.”

For now, Ako remains focused on amplifying Hayashi’s testimony. “Peace, remembrance, responsibility,” she said simply. “I hope people carry those words after they leave.”