Title: Shingeki's restless century. Topic(s): Art/Music -- Theatre -- History Subject(s): THEATER -- Japan -- History; PERFORMING arts -- Japan Source: UNESCO Courier, Nov97, Vol. 50 Issue 11, p19, 4p, 3c, 2bw Author(s): Yoshio, Ohzasa Abstract: Focuses on the history of classical Japanese theater and Shingeki or modern theater. Difference between classical theater and Shingeki; Forms of Japanese classical drama; Development of Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Letters; Compartmentalization of types of theater. AN: 9711141383 ISSN: 0041-5278 Database: Blackboard -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SHINGEKI'S RESTLESS CENTURY The chequered fortunes of Japan's modern drama There is a basic difference between classical Japanese theatre and Shingeki or "modern theater", which emerged in the early twentieth century under the influence of Western theatre. Classical theatre, which is performed exclusively by men, is musical theatre with a strong infusion of dance, unlike Shingeki, which is purely verbal, a theatre of dialogue. The traditional forms of Japanese classical drama, No, Kabuki and Bunraku, are quite distinct from each other and each one has its own playhouses. There are No theatres (nogakudo) and Kabuki theatres, and Bunraku (a variant of puppet theatre) is only performed on specially designed stages. When Shingeki came along, it created a need for Western-style playhouses in which the curtain divides the stage from the audience. In response to the aesthetics of realism, women began appearing in plays after centuries of banishment from the stage. In theory neither traditional theatre nor modern theatre, which politically speaking leans to the left, receive state subsidies. National theatres do exist--Tokyo's National Kabuki Theatre (founded in 1969), the National Puppet Theatre of Osaka, the Theatre of Traditional Arts, Tokyo's No Theatre and the New National Theatre created in 1997 for ballet and opera--but with the exception of the Osaka Puppet Theatre they do not have permanent companies. There is no national theatre school. In 1990 however, the state created the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Letters which defrays part of the costs of theatre, music and dance performances. This was the first official state contribution to the theatre. Support also comes from two long- established theatre companies, Shoshiku, which finances Kabuki performances, and Toho, which together with other private companies have funded the construction of numerous theatres. Shoshiku and Toho producers stage separate Shingeki performances by recruiting actors to work with the major stars of theatre, cinema and television. This is what is known as commercial theatre. The avowed aim of these performances, which are held in theatres that can seat from 1,000 to 2,000 people, is to make profit. The traditional compartmentalization of different types of theatre is not totally watertight. Some Kabuki actors act in new productions in films and on television, even including American and British musical comedies. In the last few years musical comedies--mainly adaptations of Western works--have become increasingly popular. A show can attract tens of thousands of people and run for up to a year. Takarazuka is a celebrated all-female review and musical comedy company whose repertory includes works such as Oklahoma, Me and my Girl and Grand Hotel as well as Japanese works based on popular comic strips like the well-known Berusayu no bara ("The Roses of Versailles") which has entertained millions of spectators. This company, which aims largely at a female audience, still has an immense following today. Born again Shingeki During Japan's militarist period before the Second World War, Shingeki was repressed, and by the summer of 1945 only one company was left--the Bungaku-za ("The Company of Letters"), which had been founded in 1937. During the democratization process initiated by the American authorities, Shingeki came back to life as popular theatre. Newly founded around directors such as Aoyama Sugisaku[*] and Senda Koreeya, the Haiyu-za (Actors Theatre) Company in 1946 staged Kensatsukan, a Japanese version of Gogol's Revisor (The Inspector General). After reforming his company, Shinkyogekidan, which he had been forced to break up, Murayama Tomoyoshi returned to the theatre in the same year with Kofutu no ie, a production of Vladimir Fedorov's The House of Happiness. Kubo Sakae, one of Shingeki's great playwrights, inaugurated the Tokyo Geijutsu Gekijo (the Tokyo Art Theatre) with actors including Takizawa Osamu, and made a new departure in the same year with Ibsen's A Doll's House. A number of leading theatre people joined the communist party (newly recognized as a political party) and, as before the war, made it their duty to spread its message through the theatre. By 1948 the greet figures of pre-war Shingeki had already made their come-back. Some new plays, such as Miyoshi Juro's Sono hito o shirazu ("You don't know this man") and Tanaka Shikao's Kumo no hatate ("At the end of the clouds"), depicted post-war life. Others like Kinoshita Junji's Yuzuru ("Twilight of a Crane"), staged by the Budo no kai company, and Onna no issho ("The Life of a Woman"), performed by the Bungaku-za company, became classics of the modern repertory. The year 1950 was a turning-point in postwar history. The Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union had settled in. When war broke out in nearby Korea, anti-Communist purges in Japan spared neither the cinema nor the theatre. One Shingeki company, the Haiyu-za, built a small theatre in 1954 (the Haiyu-za gekijo) where it staged Onna no heiwa, a production of Aristophanes' Women in Parliament. It is still unusual today for a Shingeki company to have its own theatre; most of the time they hire theatres for their plays. The Haiyu-za became the leading Shingeki theatre when in 1949 it founded its own training centre, which came to provide it and other companies with a plentiful supply of actors. Shiki, a company founded by Asari Keita and Kusaka Takeshi, reappraised the approach which had presided over the origins of Shingeki, that of Stanislavsky- inspired realism. It specialized in the plays of Jean Giraudoux and Jean Anouilh, which had very rarely been staged in Japan. In 1955, the Bungaku-za (Literary Theatre) Company had a hit with Hamlet in a version translated and directed by Fukuda Tsuneari. Shakespeare is the most widely performed playwright in Japan. In terms of the number of performances per author, he shares first place with the Kabuki playwright Kawatake Miluami. The diversity and depth of his work are a source of endless fascination to theatre lovers. One important feature of post-war Shingeki was the introduction of Bertolt Brecht's plays and theories of drama. Brecht's Fear and Misery of the Third Reich was first staged in Japan by Senda Koreeya with the Haiyu-za yoseisho (School of Dramatic Art) in 1953. Debate about Brecht's ideas on drama went hand in hand with questioning about the renewal of the modern world through theatre. In 1957, for the first time in the history of a Shingeki company, the Bungaku-za used Kabuki actors in a Fukuda Tsuneari play (Akechi Mitsuhide). The first tour of Japan by the Moscow Art Theatre the following year had a tremendous impact. It marked the start of a wave of tours by famous foreign companies that began to develop in the second half of the 1970s. Notes from underground While big demonstrations against the renewal of the security treaty with the United States were taking place in 1960, Bungaku-za brought the theatre of the absurd to Japan with their production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. The play hinted that, like Godot, the change long awaited by part of public opinion would not appear.... A series of plays by Beckett and Eugene Ionesco were produced around this time, which also saw the first performances of Shingeki outside Japan. The events of spring 1960 also left their mark on the world of Shingeki. The authority of the major companies such as Haiyu-za, Bungaku-za and Mingei began to be questioned and new companies critical of their predecessors emerged. This was a period of intense experimentation and creative activity. Doubts about the traditional left were accompanied by criticism of Shingeki. The aim behind this experimentation was to create a different theatre from Shingeki, and renewal took an extreme form in 1967 with a Karagumi (situationist theatre) performance. In the same year the Tenjosaiiki company (The Gallery Company) broke new ground as part of the drive for "the rehabilitation of theatre". Faces wearing way-out Kabuki make-up appeared on stage and pop songs announced that Shingeki was a thing of the past. A world of human folly was portrayed in an atmosphere of utter confusion. Put out of their stride by the emergence of such a different kind of theatre, critics soon dubbed it Angura ("underground"). Each underground company had its own special features, but they all shared a belief in the need to destroy the traditional perception of theatre and staging, in the importance of the actor's role, in a new approach to No and Kabuki, in the abandonment of realism and in exploration of the human unconscious. The Tenjasajiki company, directed by Terayama Shuji, staged many bold experiments, changing its use of space and stagecraft with each performance. For NokFu, street theatre, in 1975, Terayama transformed Tokyo's Suginami district into a vast stage, injecting dramatic structure into daily life and obliterating the boundaries between reality and fiction. The action took place in thirty different places at once, making it impossible for one spectator to see the entire show. Strolling Dreamers Starting in the 1970s young playwrights, directors and actors influenced by Angura founded a host of small companies which took their cue from the main trends of contemporary theatre. Among the most influential figures were Tsuka, who cynically examined the foibles of Japan and the Japanese, and Higashi, the author of a musical comedy, Tokyo Kid Brothers. Angura abolished the distinction between author, director and company manager, a move that came to be widely followed. Japanese society in the 1980s became highly prosperous and experienced the euphoria of running the world's second biggest economy after the United States. Concern about the unemployment of young people disappeared, and so did anxiety about the economic future. This was the context which gave rise to Noda Hideki with his Company of Strolling Dreamers (Yume no Yuminsha) and Kokami Shoji with his Third Stage (Daisan butai). One distinctive feature of their style is the absence of any "ordinary" people from the stage. The heroes are young people of indeterminate social background. In its stagecraft and its language this kind of theatre jumps from one form to another. It turns away from Angura's dark, brooding expressiveness and stages shows full of light music and dancing, in which sensitivity is the keynote. This form of theatre, very different from Shingeki and Angura, attracts crowds of young spectators from all social classes. Many companies have taken part in this kind of experimentation. In the 1990s, however, most of the companies practicing this type of theatre have had chequered careers. The Company of Strolling Dreamers no longer exists. The playwrights of note are those who have gone back to everyday life and language. This marks a return to early Shingeki. Independent playwrights are making a come-back, and young authors are producing their works with established Shingeki companies. Whether these playwrights work independently or not, I feel that contemporary Japanese theatre is once again at a turning point. [*] People's names: following Japanese custom, the surname precedes the given name. --Ed. PHOTO (COLOR): The Watering Place, above, was written and staged by the Tenkei Gekijo company. PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Left, the two tramps In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in a 1960 Tokyo production by the Buragaku-za (The Company of Letters). PHOTO (COLOR): Les Miserables, a musical comedy adapted from Victor Hugo's novel, being performed at Tokyo's Imperial Theatre (1997). PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Women's time has come, a play for the commercial theatre staged in Tokyo by the all-female Takarazuka company. PHOTO (COLOR): A scene from Kabuki, one of the classic forms of Japanese theatre, directed by Oguri Hangan (1997). ~~~~~~~~ BY OHZASA YOSHIO[*] OHZASA YOSHIO, of Japan, is a drama critic specializing in contemporary Japanese theatre. He is the author of a monumental 8-volume History of Modem Japanese Theatre, 6 volumes of which have so far appeared. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright of UNESCO Courier is the property of UNESCO and its content may not be copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the use of the individual user. Content provided by E-Content Solutions. Source: UNESCO Courier, Nov97, Vol. 50 Issue 11, p19, 4p, 3c, 2bw. Item Number: 9711141383