The Impossibility of Turning Rancour to Love: The Post-war Controversy over the Pacifist Constitution and Yukio Ninagawa’s Construing of Romeo and Juliet

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay is an attempt to shed light on the late Yukio Ninagawa’s (1935–2016) unique perspective of construing Romeo and Juliet, which crystallized in the moment of his little-known production of the play performed at Sainokuni Saitama Arts Theater in August 2014. In his attempt to localize the play and make it “agitate” actors and audiences in Japan, Ninagawa transformed the play into a platform for the nation’s ongoing controversy over the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) under the pacifist Constitution. The religious and legal (and secular) ideologies of peacekeeping in Verona of Romeo and Juliet are translated into the constitutional ideal and political rationality regarding the JSDF under the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Unlike the eleven plays including Ninagawa Macbeth (1980-), Titus Andronicus (2004-), and, more recently, Richard II (2015-) which made him a globally recognized Shakespeare director, 1 Ninagawa directed Romeo and Juliet in ways “to appeal to the ordinary people in Japan” (Power 164) 2 perhaps giving a hint to construe his dramaturgy of the twenty-one other Shakespearean plays performed domestically.