"Difference" and "Reflexivity": Osanai Kaoru and the Shingeki Movement

Abstract

the so-called shingeki (new theatre) have played both a major and problematic role in the history of modern Japanese theatre. As Akemi HorieWebber (1975, 151) has pointed out, in 1971 the problems of the shingeki companies were still considered ultimate manifestations of age-old shingeki problems such as its inertia and lack of strong motivation in the choice of repertoire, its deficiency in the spirit of confrontation with society and tradition, and its lack of direction. The shingeki companies between 1945 and 1960, in particular, have been censured for adhering too closely to the Western model of drama and stagecraft-and hence for having openly repudiated the Japanese theatrical heritage and the most vital part of the culture that it represented. The theatrical avant-garde of the 1960s rebelled against this repudiation of Japanese culture when the representatives of the so-called post-shingeki movement (Karajur6, Satoh Makoto, Tadashi Suzuki, and others) rejected the static and conventional forms that the tradition of the newJapanese theatre had produced. Adherence to the Western model was certainly one of the major forces driving shingeki toward a position of cultural alienation; but it was precisely by choosing to be different that the most interesting features of this movement had emerged during the first twenty years of this century. One of the principal animators of the theatrical initiatives that contributed toward defining the fundamental aspects of the shingeki theatre was Osanai Kaoru (1881-1928). His activity as playwright, director, critic, and theorist appears as an uninterrupted attempt to reconsider and