Revolutionists
Kakumei Nikki
1997
1 hr. 10 min.
14 characters
(8 male / 6 female)
Revolutionists Komachi's Tale - New Version A Couple's Story The Treasury of Loyal Retainers The Nitht Longer than the Sea People of the Far Away Days Citizens of Seoul 1919 Attacking the Ueno Zoo for the Fourth Time
RevolutionistsKakumei Nikki 1997 1 hr. 10 min. 14 characters (8 male / 6 female) |
SynopsisThis piece depicts political "radicals," who are considered out-of-date in contemporary Japan. Though their desultory discussions revolve around plans of reckless terrorism, they feel that their group is falling part. |
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Komachi's Tale - New Version Shin-pan Komachifuden 1998 1 hr. 45 min. 24 characters (10 male / 14 female) |
SynopsisBased on "Komachifuden," a masterpiece by playwright Shogo Ohta, this panoramic piece presented on a 4-platform stage depicts the pathos of several Komachis waiting for their lovers and the lovers visiting Komachis nightly.The classical Japanese legend of Komachi tells that if a man courts her for a hundred consecutive nights Komachi will be in love with him. This modern version, set in a ruined apartment house whose walls and boundaries have fallen down, renders the anxiety and weariness of waiting women and courting men. |
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A Couple's Story Meoto Zenzai 1999 1 hr. 30 min. 5 characters (3 male / 2 female) |
SynopsisA man's daughter dies and his long separated wife comes back for the funeral. The man, his wife, and her sister who was taking care of the child after she had left meet, forming a triangle.This indecisive man, though confronted by his own daughter's funeral, just keeps cooking and serving dishes to the sisters who are strangely attracted to this pitiable middle-aged man. Oriza Hirata got the motif and the title of this piece from "Meotozenzai," a novel by Sakunosuke Oda. |
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The Treasury of Loyal Retainers Chushingura 1999 50 min. 7 characters (7 male / 0 female) |
Synopsis"Chushingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers)" is the most famous Kabuki piece in the history of Japanese performing arts. In this, Hirata's version, the samurai hold a heated discussion on their future lives, after their lord has committed a major crime which will cause their clan to be demolished.Hirata wrote this piece by the request from Tadashi Suzuki, artistic director of the Theater Olympics in Shizuoka in 1999. It was presented in their open-air theater as the only piece newly written for the festival. |
TranslationsEnglish translation |
The Night Longer than the Sea Umi yorimo Nagai Yoru 1999 1 hr. 50 min. 18 characters (9 male / 9 female) |
SynopsisThis piece deals with the issue of the relationship between groups and individuals.What started as a movement against the closure of an old dormitory at a women's college in a Tokyo suburb goes through major changes. As the nature conservationists and other citizen's movements people join in, the original group members become less and less united. This piece scrupulously delineates the course of the collapse of a citizen's movement group, coolly depicting the insanity hidden in group dynamics. The title is Hirata's homage to "Life and Death in Shanghai," an excellent work depicting the tragedy during Communist China's Cultural Revolution, whose Japanese title is "Shanghai no Nagai Yoru (The Long Night in Shanghai)." |
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People of the Far Away Days Tooi Hibi no Hito 1999 1 hr. 30 min. 10 characters (4 male / 6 female) |
SynopsisOriza Hirata wrote this turn-of-the-20th-century Japanese version of "The Cherry Orchard6quot; for Kyoko Kishida, a distinguished actress noted for her theater and film career, including the movie "Woman in the Dunes (Suna no Onna)."A rash of bizarre crimes in the neighborhood, along with the prolonged economic depression, have been getting on the nerves of the inhabitants of a Tokyo neighborhood. A young woman comes back from Berlin, where she has been living, to her declining, once-wealthy family. The estate has already been put on sale but the mistress, her mother, has not told anyone about it yet. This piece, comically depicting the state of mind of the Japanese after the bubble economy burst, won Kyoko Kishida a numerous awards. |
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Citizens of Seoul 1919 Seoul Shimin 1919 2000 1 hr. 40 min. 21 characters (9 male / 12 female) |
SynopsisThis sequel to "Citizens of Seoul," one of the most renowned piece by Oriza Hirata, portrays a peaceful morning of the Shinozakis in Seoul ten years later on March 1, 1919, the very day the Samil (March First) Independence Movement, the biggest of such movements during the Japanese rule, broke out.These Japanese, the rulers of the colony, are not unaware of the alarming air outside but they just cannot simply understand why the Korean people should want to resist. Their "comic solitude" is depicted even more vividly than in "Citizens of Seoul." |
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Suddenly Married Tonari ni Itemo Hitori 2000 1 hr. 4 characters (2 male / 2 female) |
SynopsisShohei and Sumie wake up one morning to find that they have become a married couple.Shohei's brother and Sumie's sister, after twenty some years of marriage, have started living separately, facing a divorce. They suspect that their siblings are making up this "suddenly married" situation to somehow convince them to start again as a couple. In spite of that, the odd life of this new couple begins. |
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Attacking the Ueno Zoo for the Fourth Time Ueno Dobutsuen Sai-sai-sai Shugeki 2001 1 hr. 40 min. 18 characters (7 male / 11 female) |
SynopsisAfter attending the funeral of a friend, grade school alumni gather in a downtown coffee shop and work out a plan to steal a camel from the Ueno Zoo. They want to have a former classmate, the girl all the boys admired, ride on its back.Their deep sorrow and small hopes are comically depicted, as these middle-aged men, once mischievous kids, work on their plan, revealing their real lives and boyhood memories. Oriza Hirata wrote this piece based on work the late Tadao Kanasugi, playwright and director, had been preparing when he died. Hirata also added and mixed scenes from other works by Kanasugi, including one of his masterpieces, "Attacking the Ueno Zoo for the Second Time." |
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