AN ANALYSIS OF ASIAN THEARTRE

The English Community Theatre in Japan

There are a number of English community theater groups in Japan, many of which produce professional-quality plays and musicals. Runs tend to be short-usually just a few days or even a single weekend. 

Founded in 1896, Tokyo International Players (TIP) is the largest English theater group in the Tokyo area, typically producing three or four shows per year on different stages in the city, as well as offering a handful of second-stage productions. Other groups in the Kanto area include Yokohama Theatre Group (YTG), Black Stripe Theater (BST) and Tokyo Artistic Theatre Ensemble (TATE). If you have little ones, you may also want to check out Tokyo Theatre for Children (TTFC). The schedules for many of these groups, as well as Tokyo-area comedy and improve troupes, can be found at Tokyo Stage. Outside of the Tokyo area, the Nagoya Players have been active since 1975, typically producing two plays per year. Nameless Theatre and Kan Theatre (Kangeki Theatre) are two other offerings in the Aichi Prefecture capital. Around Kyoto.

The Tokyo International Players is a theatrical organization comprised primarily of the Tokyo foreign community, which provides quality English-language entertainment for international audiences. It presented 'Romeo and Juliet' on February 03, 2014 and February 27 - March 2, 2016, and it was directed by Wendell T Harrison, this marks the first time in its 117-year history that TIP will perform this play. Romeo and Juliet is the classic story of two warring families, and their children who manage to find love. One major change to this production is taking the fabled "star-crossed lovers" out of Verona, Italy and transporting them to Dejima, off the coast of Nagasaki. In 1639, tensions were high between the Japanese and the Portuguese settlers, who were all but exiled to the artificial island. TIP's production revisits this brief moment in Japanese history to shed light on the future of Japan, with an original twist where the Capulets are Japanese and the Montagues are expatriates, speaking in both English and Japanese.

This show broke new ground for Tokyo International Players. Last year, the TIP produced of Waiting for Godot whereby they used Japanese subtitles. While in Romeo and Juliet they expanded the use of Japanese subtitles and English subtitles for the Japanese lines. "Our fresh re-telling of this classic and timeless story will explore what it means to love without boundaries in a society that has trouble accepting it," says Frances Somerville, TIP Box Office Manager, "a concept which remains relevant today."

The cast includes TIP veterans Brian Berdanier, Sarah Macdonald, Rika Wakasugi, Rodger Sonomura, Paul Howl, and Ra'Chelni M. Weir II and stars newcomers Sal Randazzo as Romeo and Tomomi Kikuchi as Juliet.

The Tokyo Globe

The neighborhood of Shin-Okubo, nondescript and seldom visited, is an unlikely spot for a grand cultural experiment. Yet here, in full sight and sound of the railroad tracks, stands the Tokyo Globe, a reconstruction of Shakespeare's theater that opened its first season with a series of his history plays - in English and without translation.

Other offerings this season will include productions of Shakespeare's late romances by Britain's National Theater and a visit by the Royal Dramatic Theater Company of Sweden, presenting Ingmar Bergman's production of "Hamlet" and Strindberg's "Miss Julie" in Swedish.

In an age when Japan has vaulted to the top in trade and finance, the ambition, even the vanity, of the Tokyo Globe project is somehow fitting. "It says something about Japan," said Michael Pennington, joint artistic director of the English Shakespeare Company, the British troupe that performed the Wars of the Roses cycle beginning with "Richard II" and ending with "Richard III." "If you imagine an expensive new theater opening in the middle of London and the first companies invited are two Kabuki companies and then Ingmar Bergman," he said, "eyebrows would be raised." 'Most Popular Playwright'

Yet the Globe's producers are confident of Shakespeare's appeal to Japanese theatergoers. "If you ask who is the most popular playwright in Japan, we would have to say Shakespeare," said Seiya Tamura, senior managing director of the Shinjunku-Nishitoyama Development Company, the real estate concern that built the Tokyo Globe as the price for being allowed to construct condominium apartments on Government-owned land. "Shakespeare is universal," Mr. Tamura said. "He does express the character of human beings. We feel that the current century is a time of big changes similar to the time between the Middle Ages and the modern age, and in that kind of time, Shakespeare's plays are important."

Shakespeare scholars here agree. "There is no one else here comparable to Shakespeare," said Yushi Odashima, a professor of English at Tokyo University and perhaps Japan's foremost Shakespeare translator. "There are 15 productions a year of plays I have translated. So I think it's natural to have a balance, one theater mainly for Shakespeare." #3 Historical Sources The theater's planners decided to model the Tokyo Globe on the second Globe theater, opened in 1614 after the first burned. The architect for the project was Arata Isozaki, who designed the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Palladium discotheque in New York City. Mr. Isozaki and the Japanese Shakespeare scholars who advised him drew upon three historical sources -a sketch of the second Globe from the outside, a sketch of the interior of another Elizabethan theater, the Swan, which offered clues about seating arrangements and stage construction, and a contract for the building of the 17th-century Fortune theater, which specified that many features of the Globe be copied. To these Mr. Isozaki applied his imagination and his own interest in the neo-classical principles of much Renaissance architecture.

He came up with a 24-sided near-circle, complete with Shakespeare's thrust stage jutting into an audience seated in three tiers. Mr. Isozaki has pointed out that in some ways, the Elizabethan stage resembled Japan's Noh theater (dating from the 14th century), with a thrust stage with pillars only partly roofed over. He also discarded some conventions - the Tokyo Globe is not made of wood and is not partly open-air. And he added some distinctive touches of his own -the Tokyo Globe is salmon-pink on the outside, high-tech gray on the inside, with grids and portholelike windows. The new theater, which seats 650 to 700 people, cost $16 million.

As part of their program, the members of the English Shakespeare Company mounted a stylish, modern-dress production of "Henry V," which alluded, among other things, to the British war in the Falklands as a parallel to the zealous nationalism that infused Henry's centuries-earlier invasion of France. Mr. Pennington said the company decided to make no concessions to the Japanese audience, and indeed, some of the characters spoke with appropriate, although to Japanese ears probably unintelligible, Welsh, Irish and Scottish accents.

The audience sat attentively, several following along in Japanese-language texts of the play and listening to earphones that gave a few seconds' synopsis in Japanese between scenes. With a seriousness characteristic of the Japanese approach to both work and culture, many said they had read the play carefully. Several in the crowd said they were Shakespearean scholars, university professors or English teachers.

 Contemporary Japanese Theatre and "Global Fusion"

The most common practice of theatre tradition in Japan today is what could be called theatre of global fusion or international/intercultural theatre and drama productions, especially in Tokyo and other prefectural district like Shizuoka. The theatre culture in Japan is very strong and seems not to be threatened by the interface of the media technology or the new media. It still holds fast the orthodoxy or convention of the total theatre unlike the west. Many Western plays, from those of the Ancient Greek theatre to William Shakespeare and from those of Fyodor Dostoevsky to Samuel Beckett, are performed in Tokyo. An incredible number of performances, perhaps as many as 3,000, are given each year, making Tokyo one of the world's leading theatrical centers.

            There are different forms of theatre outlets and festivals in various cities of Japan wherein theatre productions are display. One of these festivals that is beckoned with a wealth of top-class performing arts and is so popular today, and that is really patronized by theatre professionals, fans and goers from major countries is the annual World Theatre Festival Shizuoka under Mt. Fuji, holding in the coastal city of Shizuoka, midway between Tokyo and Nagoya. This festival is organized by the director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre (SPAC) for the past ten years.

This year's festival included top artists from eight countries who presented seven varied programs between April 29 and May 8 at venues around the city - including SPAC's Shizuoka Arts Theatre and a stage specially built in the central Sumpujo Park - as well as at SPAC's Udo open-air theater in the rolling hills of Nihondaira Park.

Since this festival started, its attendances have been growing numerically, basically because of the variety of drama performances from different culture and traditions. As to why attendances are growing year after year, Miyagi, a SPAC's member, when he was asked by a local newspaper reporter how such a great festival could be happening in a tiny prefecture like Shizuoka, he said that "the answer is really that more and more people are recognizing how it is quietly but steadily becoming a showcase for some of the best of the world's theater at a time when commercial constraints are allowing fewer chances to see top-class foreign programs even in Tokyo."

His comments were amplified by the leading playwright, director and founder of the Seinendan Theater Company, Oriza Hirata. "Because of this international festival," he says, "theater people here can actually see and learn about current trends around the world, and also become more aware of how to connect with the worldwide market."

According to Yoko Narushima, SPAC's managing director, the festival is growing steadily, with paying audience numbers last year up more than 15 percent on 2013. In addition, she says, more and more visitors from outside Shizuoka are tending to stay in the city for a few days.

In her view, these positive trends have gathered pace since SPAC moved the festival's dates from June to Golden Week in 2014, allowing holidaymakers to add a little culture to their leisure (along with some of the country's freshest and most reasonably priced seafood), while giving theater buffs every excuse to unwind and indulge themselves away from the big-city bustle. To help ensure the success of that shift in timing, SPAC also revised its programming to utilize more outdoor venues, including the city's streets and parks, and even residential areas, so a wider range of people can encounter theater in their daily lives.

In addition, this year SPAC added an element called Strange Seed, which features 14 free street performances in the city center which consist of contemporary dance, physical comedy and mime. Explaining his approach, Masahiro "Worry" Kinoshita, Strange Seed's program director, says, "I invited artists who are able to perform for very mixed audiences, and who have a real pop sensibility, because I especially want this program to reach out to people who've never seen theater or dance before."

To further foster bonds between festival audiences and local people, this year SPAC will also repeat its unique Nedoco accommodationproject that proved such a hit when it was launched last year - allowing audience members to stay at such places as temples and public halls for a nominal ¥3,000 per night to cover the cost of meals.

International Theatre Professionals at SPAC in Shizuoka

As a result of all this, the festival is playing a greater role in Shizuoka society - but how is it resonating around the theater world?

Certainly, many overseas artists have been coming back after their first visit, sometimes to collaborate with SPAC's actors and staff and create new programs together.

Prominent among these was French director Claude Regy, who debuted in 2010 with his acclaimed solo drama "Ode maritime" - then returned in 2013 to create and perform a new play, titled "Allay," with SPAC actors, before taking it on tour in Europe and Asia with the same Japanese cast.

This year's lineup included: Olivier Py, the artistic director of France's Avignon Festival who returned with a new version of his "The Girl, the Devil and the Mill" from his acclaimed "Grimms' Fairy Tales" trilogy. Premiered to great reviews at the 2014 Avignon Festival, Py this time staged the work at SPAC's Udo theater.

Another returnee is the Lebanese-Canadian playwright, director and actor Wajdi Mouawad, who made his Japanese debut at the 2010 festival with his award-winning play "Littoral," and this time brings his solo autobiographical masterpiece "Seuls."

Australian artist Tim Watts is another one of many with fond memories of SPAC's upland base. As he prepares to make his second festival appearance, this time with "It's Dark Outside," his nonverbal short play involving imaginative puppetry, animated films and original music, he recalled in an email how, "Six years ago, drinking green tea freshly harvested from the fields just outside the theater I'd just performed in, and staring out at Mount Fuji towering above me, I felt dwarfed by the breathtaking setting of Shizuoka that is infused with art and culture."

In a slightly different way, returning Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen, who is one of the biggest names in Asian theater, reported that SPAC's "unique character" helped to lure him back.

"The sense of adventure in a festival is very important and SPAC has this," he said. "I don't believe in bourgeois festivals that are about bringing 'the best' together. A festival in its deeper meaning is about a time and space outside of our normal lives; it's an escape valve, a carnival which enriches our life afterward."

Ong is certainly putting on a carnival this year, combining kabuki, kyōgen(Japan's traditional comedy theater) and contemporary theater actors with ones from Singapore and Indonesia in his self-styled "global fusion" production of leading Japanese playwright Hideki Noda's "Richard Sandaime" ("Third-generation Richard"), based loosely on Shakespeare's "Richard III."

Explaining that he is "particularly interested in intercultural interfaces, meaning dialogues between cultures," Ong says he is eagerly awaiting Miyagi's new work "The White Hare of Inaba-Navajo."

In this play, which will have its world premiere at the festival, Miyagi introduces the well-known Japanese fable, "The White Hare of Inaba," and a strangely similar story common among Native Americans - then proceeds to create a third version.

In exploring how the ancient fable may have crossed the Pacific and then been transformed, the festival's artistic director says he was happy to be pursuing the kind of "intercultural interface" beloved by Ong. He also says he has every intention of inviting more great foreign artists as well as introducing the world to Japanese plays by taking his "White Hare" to France in June, for instance, following his Avignon Festival triumph with "Mahabharata" two years ago. Besides these five programs by returning artists, two first-timers will join the festival this year.

Already well-known here for his prints and drawings, South African artist William Kentridge will debut with "Ubu and the Truth Commission." Created in collaboration with compatriots from the famed Handspring Puppet Company, this work combining Kentridge's puppetry with live acting, animation and documentary films is intriguingly billed as an updated version of Alfred Jarry's powerful and groundbreaking 1896 absurdist play "Ubu Roi" - but set in the post-apartheid era.

The other newcomer this year is Lebanese actress Sawsan Bou Khaled, who will perform "Alice," a nightmarish solo play she wrote and directs that had its world premiere in Beirut in 2013.

All in all, Miyagi seems to be well on course to giving Japan its own outstandingly welcoming, top-notch variant on Avignon's renowned annual international arts event - and one held in a similarly marvelous natural setting, too.

Conclusion

The contemporary theatre professionals and buffs have not been cornered by the technological advances of the old and the new media which seem to pose a great threat on conventional theatre practices, because they have chosen to hold tenaciously onto their traditional theatre heritage, though now modified with modern elements, and have also entertain international/inter-cultural drama in their land, that is opening up doors for various artists from different parts of the world to enrich the aesthetics of theatre, especially in terms of cultural exchange of values and themes. This practice and reverence of theatre is worthy of emulation in order to sustain the life of the live theatre irrespective of technological interface. 

Works Cited

Harris, J Wesley. The Traditional Theatre of Japan. Edwin Mellen Press: USA, 2003. Print.

Worthen, W. B. The Harcourt Anthology of Drama: Brief Edition. University of California, Berkeley, 2002. Print.

Tanaka, Nobuko. Theatre Festival's Root Dip Deep into Shizuoka: Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre. 2016