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Nina Anarina
Doctor of Arts History, Leading researcher, State Institute of Art Studies

ON THE JAPANESE WAY OF CREATING NEW ART FORMS (ON SHINGEKI, DRAMA AND THEATER)

The birth in the 20th century of modern drama and theater was an epoch-making development in the history of Japanese culture, similar to the emergence of oil painting, classical ballet or a school of composers of music.

Many (if not most) new phenomena in the culture of any nation are modeled after well developed prototypes created by other nations. A classical example of such a new art form is the Japanese Shingeki drama and theater. This evolution is of profound importance for understanding the destiny of culture, and we, living witnesses of the process, have every reason to feel fortunate. In this presentation, I will only touch upon the emergence of Shingeki, which, toward the end of the 1990s and already with a history of more than 100 years, was granted the status of 'national theater.'

The trends and governing principles of the development of any artistic phenomenon typically manifest themselves most vividly during the establishment of the phenomenon in question. I should like to use the example of Shingeki in order to demonstrate how Japanese culture processes everything foreign and transforms it into 'genuinely' its own. The Shingeki phenomenon is a single manifestation of the operation of this universal Japanese practice in world culture.

It is well known that following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japanese culture wasted no time in mastering European forms of creativity. This renewal revealed itself in the field of theater in many bright manifestations.

Characteristically, theatrical and drama reforms first came in for discussion not among the artistic intellectuals but in government circles. It happened in the year 1872. As an item on the government agenda it was included in the same section with plans to reform the language as well as customs and mores, i. e., fell into the category of cultural policy and everyday life rather than the arts. In 1886, on the initiative of several statesmen, a Society for the Theater Reform (Engeki kairyokai) was set up with a view to "forming on the base of Kabuki a new show worthy of the Highest Presence." (1)

The emperor visited a Kabuki performance for the first time in 1887, which immediately raised the social prestige and improved the status of the acting profession. But it did not mean that a real reform of Kabuki had actually begun. Quite the opposite, the emperor was only shown a program composed of plays borrowed from the repertoire of the No theater with an addition of several small pieces in the new genre of katsurekimino ('plays on current history'); these latter plays relied on historical events and documents of the last years of the shyogunate and were composed by Kabuki playwrights according to the old canons. (2)

Thus, it appeared that the objective of the Society for reform of Theater was to impart to a Kabuki show a severe and officious coloring. The performance for the emperor did not reflect the actual situation, which consisted, among other things, in the great willingness for renewal on the part of Kabuki actors and dramatists--their response to the call of new times.

At that time, the Kabuki theater was vigorously mastering the Shakespearean repertoire. During the Meiji epoch, Kabuki actors staged "The Merchant of Venice," "King Lear," Othello," and "Hamlet." In fact so great was the interest in Shakespeare that the Kawatake Mokuami (1816-1893), the genius of a playwright and the last dramatist of Edo Kabuki, wanted to rewrite "Hamlet" for Kabuki.

Rewriting a play the Japanese way was more than in order because all Shakespearean plays in Kabuki at the time were nothing if not free adaptations. The very first performance of this kind, "The Merchant of Venice," was staged in 1885 by the Nakamura Sojuro troupe in the Osaka Ebisu Theater, with a Katsu Kenzo as the author of the text. The play was given a pretentious title in the Kabuki spirit, "Trial of a Case of Pawning Human Flesh after Shakespeare" ("Sekispia-no ninniku shintiire saiban"), and was based not on the text of the original comedy, but on a children's book, Tales from Shakespeare, by the brother and sister team of Charles and Mary Lam, which was very popular in Japan at the time. The Japanese believed that the book presented the 'indecent' Shakeaspearean subjects in a 'decent' manner.(3)

Japanese Shakespearean scholar Oba Kenji maintains that this book "thrust the colossal and chaotic vitality of Shakespeare's plays within the confines of morals and logic."(4) He wrote on, "In the final analysis, no one even touched upon the source, but people got used to the thought that somewhere on the edge of the earth there are people who may pawn their flesh, that this is an outlandish subject and that it is being enacted in the Kabuki Theater in Osaka as a farce on an everyday theme… For all that, the show was highly appreciated and was resumed three times." (5)

Adaptations of Shakespeare's plays by the Shimpa actors in the early 20th century, including those presented during the famous tour of Europe and Russia by Kawakami Otojiro (1864-1911), could only be described as superficial if not muddled. Thus, in his production of "Othello" of 1903, Iago was shot in the finale because, it was thought, the Japanese audience would not have been satisfied with the solution that Shakespeare proposed. "Moreover, during the premiere show the soldiers executed Othello instead of Iago by mistake, which turned the entire affair into a full-blown comedy." (6)

There was a profound cultural-historical meaning in these seemingly absurd adaptations however. The Japanese used Shakespearean subjects to learn about the western world's ways of life, the nature of relationships between people, the means of solving problems of life. The unfamiliar, exotic subjects were attractive in themselves, as fantasy and fairytales are; they were uncanny and stunning. The collisions in "Hamlet" or "King Lear" evoked a storm of emotions in a Japanese audience. The unusual stories presented in the usual manner of Kabuki appeared in a purer, more 'valuable in themselves,' version than they might have if Shakespeare had been represented in Japan as it was in Europe, when the content would have been flooded under a mass of new and unfamiliar stage details. Kabuki adaptations of Shakespeare were a logical stage in the comprehension and mastering of European drama tradition. They paved the way to translations, which in turn opened the doors to creating an indigenous modern drama.

It is noteworthy that Kabuki actors not only acquainted their contemporaries with Shakespeare but have also introduced new characters, modern events and ideas into their plays, thus creating new topical works of art. Of course, a stage presentation of a contemporary subject with canonic Kabuki means of expression canned these very new subjects as it were, limiting further evolution of the drama and stage art toward radical renewal. Because the genre put limits on both, the Kabuki's role in creating a new theater can only be described as intermediary or preliminary. But thanks to this, the Kabuki has preserved itself as a classical art form. New contents called for new forms, and the Shingeki drama was developed by a new generation of artists, people with European education. Yet, even that group was dominated by those who had no wish to say good-bye to traditional cultural values.

Tsubouti Shoyo (1856-1935), a major educator of the epoch who was brought up appreciate the Kabuki, was a connoisseur and translator of Shakespeare; he did not wait for appearance of a new generation of actors. His only appeal was for a new drama to come into being. While working on translations of Shakespeare and comparing his texts with Kabuki plays, he came to the conclusion that newness would only come to the Japanese theater if Japanese drama is modernized: if the narrative element is minimized, if a piece is built around a single core idea, and if characters are molded in the style of 'objective realism' and are not made to fit the canons of Kabuki dramaturgy-monologues, episode-based structuring and character parts. It was this comparative analysis and observation of the work of adapting Shakespeare for the Japanese stage that inspired his famous treatise-"Our Historical drama (Waga kuni-no shigeki, 1893). Shoyo's treatise and his appropriate insistence on creating a "realistic drama of characters" should be regarded as a program for entire period during which modern theater came into being in Japan. Thus the idea of new drama was matured and formulated.

Shoyo did not wait long before he decided to realize his plan himself. He wrote his first historical drama "A Leave of Paulownia" (Kiri hitona, 1894). A creative assignment that Shoyo set out to implement in writing the play was a far cry from the declarations in his treatise, however. The assignment was very traditional-to create an atmosphere of a drama. But the same task faced the dramatists of the No theater-to create the futei, or 'style' of the drama, and the dramatists of Kabuki-to create sekai, the 'world' of the drama. This notion that a drama cannot be without sekai, without, i. e., its own realm, atmosphere and style, would run through the entire history of modern theater; in fact, it underlies its specific qualities and characteristics. Thus, the ancient stage tradition was not to break and, moreover, impart its coloring to a new art form.

The 1890s saw a growing role played by those leaders of the movement for a new theater who often engaged in impassioned polemics arguing that a new theater could only be built along the path of mastering the foreign repertoire. Two new terms made their appearance in the lexicon of those champions for modern drama: honyakugeki, ('translated play') and socakugeki ("original play'). While creation of an original play was postulated as the chief and final objective, the road toward it lay via mastering a translated play, of the techniques of its production and performance. Indeed, only after highly professional actors and directors of the new theater, people brought up not on national but foreign repertoire, appeared in Japan did it become possible to create a mature and modern national drama.

Even today, however, a Japanese dramatist cannot compose the so-called literary drama, he writes only if he has a target audience before his mental eye-such is the historical destiny of the genre that a Japanese dramatist is inspired by the theater, is born in the theater and belongs to the theater completely. Drama that met the demands of high art appeared in Japan only when the theatrical art reached a high enough stage of development. Zeami with his yokyoku dramas could only appear after the preparatory work of his father had been done; Tikamatsu came up only after performances with big dolls had attained perfection; the great Kabuki dramatists came along only in the 19th century, i. e., in the third century of the Kabuki theater's existence. Following this logic, a full-fledged modern drama could only come forth in a well-developed theater with an established creative creed.

The Japanese needed foreign drama not for itself but packaged with its stagecraft. In other words, drama and acting were perceived as an unbreakable whole; consequently, the only way to achieve a theater "as advanced as in Europe" was by translating and performing European plays, by openly copying European productions. Such was the spirit guiding the Shingeki theatrical community in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Foreign drama and foreign theater was, therefore, the nourishing element that raised modern Japanese theater. But the assimilation of the western dramaturgical and theatrical traditions was accompanied by a stalemate in the development of "the original play." (7) The causes of this slowdown were not so much western influence as the cultural stereotypes inherent in the Japanese, i. e., in the way they regarded the western theater and drama and in the manner in which they tried to assimilate them. Their manner of thinking was quite traditional and hierarchic in the medieval sense-should they have done it differently they would have ceased to be Japanese. They regarded European theatrical culture in a constrained, dogmatic manner (in the medieval sense of the term), perceiving western theatrical tradition as a strict canon. This implied that they should follow the traditional precepts in studying: first learn all the canonical rules and only thereafter begin to 'live in the canon freely' (or spontaneously, in Japanese thinking).

It was perfectly natural that given the mobility and the multifaceted, fragmentary and essentially un-canonical character of the European theater, the Japanese investigators faced enormous problems. When (soon enough) they realized that the theater and drama abroad had many faces, that each dramatist and producer sought to elaborate his own principles of creativity, they drew quite an extreme conclusion-that novelty was the very essence of European culture. This realization compelled the Japanese to learn, master and digest everything at once and the sooner the better; moreover, fearing that they may miss on something they were overcome with a passionate desire to put on their own stage everything in the world that was the newest and most advanced.

Guided by their traditional notions that the only way to master a canon was with the help of a living and, preferably, legendary teacher and in a 'mouth-to-mouth' fashion at that, many members of the Japanese theatrical community set out on voyages to Russia, Europe and America. Therefore, the first productions of foreign dramas in Japan were, as a rule, either repetitions of the famous European shows of that time (productions by Stanislavsky, Antoine, Copeau, and others) or pieces 'directed' in line with the principles of Kabuki. Thus, the original idea of the Japanese was to create a 20th-century theater and drama as a new canonical art, that is, as all art forms of the Japanese classical theater actually were. May I repeat: European theatrical culture was to be the source for this new art; it was to be studied and assimilated with enthusiasm and a veneration befitting a fascinated disciple; then, it was to be adapted, translated and, finally, recreated on Japanese 'soil' through Japanese creative effort as a purely Japanese version of the world theatrical movement of the 20th century.

Complementing the effort of Tsubouti Shoyo in creating a new theater was its first great director, Osanai Kaoru (1881-1928), one of the founders of the Free Theater and the art director of the Little Theater in Tsukiji. The opening of that theater in June 1924 vividly demonstrated the part that foreign stage art had played in the destiny of Shingeki. Osanai Kaoru refused the new Japanese drama a place in the repertoire of his Little Theater, his program called for production of translated plays only, or, as they used to say then, "plays of recognized virtues" (seigeki). The chief objective of the Little Theater r was to raise stagecraft to a qualitatively new stage, to fully master European production methods, to bring up new actors educated in foreign theatrical tradition, and to form a new audience. This was not so much a new program, after all, even Shoyo championed, in the late 19th century, creation of a modern theater on the basis of studies and mastering foreign theatrical tradition. What was very new, however, was the tragic straightforwardness with which Osanai rejected both the newly born "original play" and the experience of Kabuki actors in renovating the stage. He decided that modern actors and directors could only come into being if they discard the yoke of the Japanese "original play" and Kabuki together, i. e., the entire experience of age-long traditions together with the new experience gained in trying to create a modern theater. Osanai made up his mind to have a fresh start. He passionately defended his right to direct the theater to where his designs pointed, and he vehemently fought against a whole army of new Japanese playwrights. He openly said the following on one occasion: "Why we are loath to staging Japanese plays? The answer is simple. Because the Japanese playwrights do not have plays that can make one thirsty to stage them." (8)

Now, 75 years after the founding of the Little Theater in Tsukiji, one can say with confidence that it was an amazing event never to be repeated in the history of Shingeki. It did bring up all the best actors and directors of modern theater, people who indefatigably continued their activities even after the war. It has succeeded in educating highly qualified dramatists, critics and set designers. Indeed, the almost inhuman intensity which marked the activities of the Little Theater in Tsukiji is staggering. It produced 84 plays in just five years. The overall number of plays staged is 117. Of which 27 were Japanese, 19 Russian; 17 German; 13 English and Irish; 9 American, 7 Swedish; 6 Norwegian; 5 French; 3 Belgian; 3 Italian; and 8 other than the above. (9) During the first two years, the theater only staged translated foreign plays-a total of 44. Osanai was fond of repeating famous European productions, and he transferred to the Japanese stage the famous Moscow Art Theater's productions of plays by Chekhov and Gorky.

The activities of Osanai Kaoru clearly showed the place and role of foreign theater and drama in the formation of the new theater in Japan. They performed the part of the canon that had to be mastered; they became a school in dramaturgical and stage art. The Japanese have developed from the superficial copying of European forms to the profound mastery of ideas and forms of European theatrical culture while preserving their national originality. The opening in Tokyo in 1997 of the New National Theater, where one stage is reserved for Shingeki performances, is proof that at the end of the 20th century, Shingeki was recognized as a national treasure of the Japanese people. (10)

Notes

1. Kawatake Toshio. Kindai engeki-no tenkai. Tokyo. 1982, pp. 107-108.
2. See Ibaraki Tadashi. Nihon shingeki shyoshi. Tokio. 1985, p. 15.
3. Charles Lam (1775-1838), an English author whose book Tales from Shakespeare was translated into Russian and published in Russia in 1865.
4. Article by Oba Kenji "Honyan to honyaku" in the "Higeki-kigeki" magazine. Tokyo. 1981, # 11, p. 9.
5. Ibid, pp. 9-10.
6. Ibd, p. 10
7. See Ted Takay's very clear statement to this effect in Modern Japanese Drama. An Anthology. New York, p. XIX.
8. See above: Kawatake Toshio, p. 198.
9. See above: Ibaraki Takashi, p. 15.
10. See major review of Shingeki news in Theater Year Book. Tokyo. 1998.