In 1941, German physicist Heisenberg paid a visit to Bohr. They spoke very briefly before Bohr angrily ended the conversation and Heisenberg left. Ever since, mystery and controversy have surrounded this historic exchange and the motivation behind Heisenberg’s meeting with his mentor.

This production is adapted from a chapter about alien creatures in Japanese comic artist Osamu Tezuka’s work “Phoenix”. The story is about Sakonnosuke, who goes to the Horaiji Temple one rainy night to seek a Buddhist nun, Yaobikuni. She has been brought up as a boy by her tyrannical father against her wishes, and she wants her own identity back. Knowing that the nun has cured her father’s terminal illness, she wants to stop the healing. But Sakonnosuke is caught in a time warp and travels back in time to 30 years earlier. The experience is an enlightening one for her as she sees life differently from then on.

Legend has it that taking the blood of the Phoenix would allow one to gain eternal life, and thus begins humankind’s endless killings in a scramble for immortality. The legendary Phoenix can transform into any living being and freely traverses time and space to observe what humankind would do to attain eternal life. It provides insights into humans’ love and hate, and even life and death, and offers an opportunity to review the true meaning of life.

Martin is in the prime of his life and career. But when Ross, his friend of 40 years, reveals Martin’s darkest secret to his wife Stevie, his world starts to fall apart. Married for 22 years, Martin has always remained faithful to Stevie – until he meets his true love, Sylvia the goat. He and “she” are so passionately in love that they have already entered into a relationship. Stevie is hurt to the core and their son Billy, who is gay, directs his anger towards his father. The two have a showdown with Martin, leading to a family on the brink of losing its sanity.

When love lays itself bare and hate runs deep, there is no more acceptance, sympathy or empathy, only betrayal, contempt and jealousy. What is love? And does exceeding our moral standards represent absurdity?

Pasolini was murdered in a suburb of Rome on November 2, 1975, being run over several times by his own car. The murderer, Giuseppe Pelosi, was only 17 years old. In 2005 Pelosi suddenly retracted his confession, saying, “I was terrorised, they have threatened my father and mother. But now my mother is dead of cancer, and my father died ten years after her. And these people are either dead or old. I am no longer afraid.”

Pasolini travelled between great extremes during his life. He was a poet as well as a film director, with a number of his movies failing the censor; he believed in communism though his family had Fascist connections; his thoughts were otherworldly and his movies were regarded as highly controversial, especially among the public. Pasolini had extraordinary levels of creativity, yet often destroyed what he had achieved in a bid to outrage what he regarded as the twisted values of the public. He remained highly active until his life came to its sudden end. Whether his murder was a simple act of violence or for more complex reasons remains a mystery.