Place: Seisen University (3-16-21 Higashi Gotanda, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-8642, TEL: (03)3447-5551) (map in Japanese), which is about a ten-minute walk from Gotanda station. Turn left coming out of the barrier at Gotanda JR station. Take the road forking right, accessible via the footbridge. Keep going until you eventually pass a pizza and pasta restaurant, "To the Herbs." Take the next turning to the left and continue up the hill until you come to the university gateway on the left. The lecture theatre is approached from No. 1 Building behind the Conder House and is on a lower level; the route will be clearly marked. If you take a taxi from the station, insist on "SeiSEN Joshi Daigaku", not "SeiSHIN".
Information: ASJ Office
Foreigners seeing Kabuki for the first time, writes Mr. Hamatani, are immediately struck by the brightness, the colour and the richness of the scenes before them. The use of an all-male cast and the portrayals of the female roles by the onna-gata actors add a lustre to the overall impression.
Japanese audiences derive enjoyment from repeatedly seeing the same plays or scenes again and again, each time with different actors in the main roles. To them, it is perfectly natural that everything from the scenery to the costumes, props and movements of the actors should be the same as the last time they saw the play. They also assume that things have probably been the same for centuries, because historically, since the inception of Noh, the primary focus in the theatre has been on the main actors.
When people from Western backgrounds go to see a Kabuki or Bunraku play a second or third time, they may be surprised to see that everything is the same as the last time they saw it. People who are used to the kind of theatre in which each new production of a play creates a new experience for the audience may find traditional Japanese theatre somewhat disconcerting.
In his talk, Mr. Hamatani will demonstrate how it can be that in traditional theatre everything in the production revolves around the actor, to get the audience to focus on the actor. He will explain how this tradition has come about, and what the thinking and the values behind it are.
Mr. Hamatani, who hails from Toyama, was a stage manager at the National Theater of Japan for 32 years, from 1966 to 1998, working on productions of all types of Japanese traditional theatre and performing arts. He has also done a large amount of other kinds of theatrical work (technical, design, playwriting and directing) for numerous productions ranging from traditional theatre to avant-garde, and taking in dance and many varieties of both Western and Asian theatre. A year spent studying in the graduate programme of the Theater Department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa was the beginning of a 30-year relationship as advisor to the University of Hawaii Bunraku and Kabuki productions.
Adapted from "The Asiatic Society of Japan Bulletin No. 7", July 2001, compiled by Prof. Hugh E. Wilkinson and Mrs. Doreen Simmons.
Return to the ASJ 2001 lecture schedule