Shakespeare in Tokyo

Abstract

Judging by the number of plays performed, Shakespearean activity in Japan seems to have been as flourishing in 1977 as in recent years, but its quality was less remarkable. In January Haiyuza Dramatic Company produced Julius Caesar (with Tatsuya Nakadai's Machiavellian Antony), and the company also staged two Twelfth Nights with different casts in May and September. April brought Shochiku Company's sumptuous production of Othello and Yen Dramatic Company's Measure for Measure (Terence Knapp directing, and featuring a fascist Angelo). In June we saw The Merchant of Venice by Shiki Dramatic Company and The Taming of the Shrew (which made much of the Induction around Christopher Sly) by Subaru Dramatic Company. Of these I will discuss only two productions representative of this year's activity. First, however, some words about Japanese productions of Shakespeare in general. The language is almost always Japanese (visiting troupes are exceptions). Each dramatic company chooses its acting text from among the several contemporary translations available, each of them offering a fairly accurate rendering of the original. Cuts are usually more extensive than in British the tres today. And sometimes, but not often, substitutions are made for the verb l jokes that do not get across in literal translations. The most serious loss is in the poetry of the plays. But it is surprising how well Shakespeare survives in translation. In the Shiki Dramatic Company's Merchant of Venice, directed by Keita Asari, the tone of the whole was set in an extra-textual initial scene where people came and went on a piazza-like stage, Shylock in black tottering along among them with a stray-dog's terrified but defiant eyes.