In 1944, hundreds of Japanese prisoners of war in a camp at Cowra, New South Wales planned an escape. Each group of prisoners was represented by an elected leader, a honcho, and the decision was made that rather than live with the shame of captivity, all of the men would either escape or die in the attempt.

The resulting breakout, which took place on August 5, 1944, was the largest and bloodiest POW escape of World War II, resulting in the deaths of 231 Japanese and four Australian soldiers.

In the 70th anniversary year of the Cowra breakout, Japanese writer-director Yoji Sakate has created a play, Cowra no Hancho Kaigi (Honchos' Meeting in Cowra) that examines the event from both Japanese and Australian perspectives and from the viewpoints of the past and the present.

The Australian tour of Cowra no Hancho Kaigi has received grant funding through the Australia Japan Foundation. It is produced by Rinkogun theatre company, which was co-founded by Sakate in 1983 and features 16 Japanese actors and four Australians - Matthew Crosby, Baylea Davis, Sarah Jane Kelly, and Sonny Vrebac, all NIDA alumni and Australian-Japan Foundation Scholarship recipients - who have been rehearsing with the large Japanese cast in in Tokyo.

Speaking through an interpreter, Sakate says he worked with graduate students at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney nine years ago - "a wonderful experience". He was taken to visit Cowra by former NIDA director, Aubrey Mellor. Sakate had known about the breakout but thought it was different to how it had sometimes been portrayed: in fact, many of the Japanese were not professional soldiers and a lot of them were reluctant to die but still went along with the plan despite knowing the high risk.

"I felt the need to address how that happened. It was a big question for me."

Sakate wanted to work with Australians again and retooled his play - which originally featured an all-Japanese cast - to include Australian characters. Cowra no Hancho Kaigi depicts life in the camp prior to the breakout, as well as a fictional story about present-day Australian film students researching the events for a documentary. Its a play-within-a-play structure that explores the events and their meaning, and the tensions between past and present; the issues raised here are still relevant in, and between, the two countries. Japan and Australia still have their ups and downs, and Japan is coming to terms with its past and with its place in the world as a military force today.

The Australian actors went to Japan for four weeks of rehearsal and he directed them through an interpreter.

"I was very pleased to work with all of the Australian actors - a few of them I had worked with before at NIDA. I think the Australian actors give the story balance;'' he says. He listened to what they had to say in rewriting the work for this production and says some scenes come across a bit lighter as a result. "Playfulness" was one of the qualities he noted in the Australian actors.

One of the characters in the play is based on a Japanese survivor of the breakout whom Sakate met in Kobe and who came to see the production.

"He was very pleased."