Performing Shakespeare in Contemporary Japan: The Yamanote Jijosha’s The Tempest

Emi Hamana

doi:10.1515/mstap-2016-0017

Authors

Emi Hamana Tokyo Woman’s Christian University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1515/mstap-2016-0017

Keywords:

An additional ending, delusion, magic, violence, the 11 March 2011 disaster

Abstract

In considering the Yamanote Jijosha’s The Tempest, this paper explores the significance of performing Shakespeare in contemporary Japan. The company’s The Tempest reveals to contemporary Japanese audiences the ambiguity of Shakespeare’s text by experimenting with the postdramatic and a new acting style. While critically pursuing the meaning and possibility of theatre and performing arts today, this version of The Tempest powerfully presents a critical view of the blindness and dumbness of contemporary Japan, as well as the world represented in the play.

Author Biography

Emi Hamana, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University

Ph.D. is Emeritus Professor of Tsukuba University, and Professor of Tokyo Woman’s Christian University. She specializes in Shakespeare studies, cultural studies, and English education, especially focusing on multicultural and multilingual performances of Shakespeare’s plays worldwide along with intercultural collaboration in contemporary theatre. She is the author of The Wonder of Gender: Shakespeare and Gender (2004) and Connecting Cultures: From Shakespeare to Contemporary Asian Theatre (2012). Her articles include “Contemporary Japanese Responses to Shakespeare: Problems and Possibilities” for Theatre International: East-West Perspectives on Theatre, Vol. V (2012) and “This Is, and Is Not, Shakespeare: A Japanese-Korean Transformation of Othello” for Alicante Journal of English Studies, Vol. 25 (2012). She is a contributor to The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, Vol. 2. The World’s Shakespeare, 166-Present, ed. by Bruce Smith, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

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