UNITED KINGDOM: JAPANESE KIYAMA THEATRE COMPANY PERFORM THEIR VERSION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY HAMLET " KANADEHON HAMLET"

Record ID: 391153

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: JAPANESE KIYAMA THEATRE COMPANY PERFORM THEIR VERSION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAY HAMLET " KANADEHON HAMLET"
  • Date: 22nd March 2001
  • Summary: EXCERPT OF PLAY / ACTOR LEARNING HOW TO DO 'TO BE OR NOT TO BE' HAMLET SOLILOQUY
  • Embargoed: 6th April 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UK
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA7GAF3A5XHW5TNYFYLJ2E18UEL
  • Story Text: It's already hugely successful in Japan and has now had its first performance in the UK. "Kanadehon Hamlet" - a cleverly played backstage comedy about the first ever production of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in Japan has had its debut in London.
    Whilst London's West End is bursting with glamorous musicals and glitzy shows, theatergoers in the south of the city were engaging with something out of the ordinary recently.
    Tokyo's Kiyama Theatre paid Londoners a quick visit with their internationally successful production "Kanadehon Hamlet".
    The play is based on two of the greatest revenge tragedies in literature. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is naturally well-known, but the epic Kanadehon Chushingura tale about 47 samurai may be less familiar.
    The resulting hybrid, "Kanadehon Hamlet", written by award-winning Japanese writer Harue Tsutsumi, is a backstage comedy about the first production of Hamlet in Japan. The story - set in 1897 at a time of Western modernization in Japan - deals with cultural misunderstandings that emerge when a traditional Kabuki troupe attempts to stage "Hamlet".
    Harue Tsutsumi, who lives in the United States thought of writing the play because of the cultural differences she observes in her everyday life: "The thing is I've been living in the United States for more than twenty years. The longer I live in the United States the more I feel Japanese inside. In my everyday life I always feel a kind of conflict - I might not really call it a conflict, because it's not serious, it's very subtle. A little uncomfortable, but still it's there. No matter how long I live in the United States so that's why I would like to make this situation into a play", she says.
    At the centre of the play is the hilariously bizarre attempt of a Kabuki actor to deliver Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" scene, a task that proves difficult for him.
    "The highlight of the play is the scene when the Kabuki actor tries to deliver the Hamlet soliloquy because in Kabuki there's no such thing as a soliloquy. They always have to talk to each other or make it a kind of dance. They never talk directly to the audience so in actual history when Kabuki tried to produce something, kind of not original Kabuki play but something influenced by Western plays they really had a time with the soliloquy, but in Hamlet there's the very famous soliloquy 'To be or not to be' so the highlight of the play is the Kabuki actor really trying hard to deliver the soliloquy and at first he couldn't and gradually he find out the meaning of the soliloquy", says Harue Tsutsumi.
    Tsutsumi worked once again with award-winning Japanese director Toshifumi Sueki whose main challenge was to keep the play humorous whilst explaining the nature of Kabuki to audiences less familiar with traditional Japanese theatre.
    "Because there are so many different people in the audiences, the play itself is very enjoyable and very humorous and what I focused on was not to make the direction a very deliberate directing gimmick, so to speak, and also I directed bearing in mind that the audience can breath in the play as naturally as possible. That's how I wanted the directing to be."
    The play is all in Japanese but that's not a problem for foreign audiences who are given headsets to listen to simultaneous translations.
    As for the actors, doing Shakespeare is a welcome challenge. Takashi Fujiki who plays Hamlet is one of Japan's leading Shakespearean actors.
    "In my case, I've seen many films with Laurence Olivier in my teens. I was really attracted by that. Also, in drama schools we learn lots of Shakespeare, but obviously in Japan there is the problem of translating so that's a difficulty.
    I've talked to many translators myself to get a feeling for the actual text. Also whenever I come to London I see many Shakespearean plays and the productions done here", he says.
    Another leading Shakespearean actor is Minoru Uchida whose role in the play is that of the producer introducing "Hamlet" to the Kabuki actors. Uchida, whose other Shakespearean performances include Macbeth and Richard III prefers Shakespeare to Kabuki ... not just because of the different acting style but most of all the less complicated costumes...
    "This is better for me because in Japan we've been wearing Western clothes for more than hundred years now and when you do Kabuki you have to put lots of padding in around the shoulders around the stomach to make it look big. So because Japan's become very westernized of course it's much easier for me to be wearing Western type of clothes", he says.
    After the smashing success of "Kanadehon Hamlet" in the South of London, the director and the troupe hope to return soon to Shakespeare country and even to make it to the West End.
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