Some Japanese Shakespeare Productions in 2014-15

Shoichiro Kawai

doi:10.1515/mstap-2016-0013

Authors

Shoichiro Kawai University of Tokyo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2016-0013

Keywords:

Shakespeare, adaptation, Bunraku, Kyogen, Falstaff, Much Ado about Nothing, Macbeth, Hamlet, Japanese traditional theatre, Yukio Ninagawa

Abstract

This essay focuses on some Shakespeare productions in Japan during 2014 and 2015. One is a Bunraku version of Falstaff, for which the writer himself wrote the script. It is an amalgamation of scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor and those from Henry IV. It was highly reputed and its stage design was awarded a 2014 Yomiuri Theatre Award. Another is a production of Much Ado about Nothing produced by the writer himself in a theatre-in-the-round in his new translation. Another is a production of Macbeth arranged and directed by Mansai Nomura the Kyogen performer. All the characters besides Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were performed by the three witches, suggesting that the whole illusion was produced by the witches. It was highly acclaimed worldwide. Another is a production of Hamlet directed by Yukio Ninagawa, with Tatsuya Fujiwara in the title role. It was brought to the Barbican theatre. There were also many other Shakespeare productions to commemorate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.

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Author Biography

Shoichiro Kawai, University of Tokyo

Professor of cultural representations at the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph. D.’s from the University of Cambridge as well as from the University of Tokyo. He has contributed to The Routledge Companion to Directors’ Shakespeare, ed. John Russell Brown (Routledge, 2008) and The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, ed. Bruce R. Smith (CUP, 2016). His recent publications include “More Japanized, Casual, and Transgender Shakespeares”, Shakespeare Survey 62 (2009), “Kabuki Twelfth Night and Kyogen Richard III: Shakespeare as a Cultural Catalyst”, Shakespeare Survey 64 (2011), and “‘The hours come back!’: Significant Inconsistencies in The Comedy of Errors”, Shakespeare Studies 53 (2015).

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