J-theatre “with Covid”: temporary and structural performance adaptations in present crisis mode.
Panel PerArt_12 at conference EAJS2023: 17th International Conference of the European Association of Japanese Studies.
The ongoing pandemic has stimulated traditional and contemporary theatre practitioners to adapt long-held training, performance, and producing practices according to health restrictions (social distance, spectator numbers), government funding regulations, and technological innovation.
Long Abstract:
Since March 2020, Japan has been reacting to the changing circumstances of the pandemic. While blanket policies exist in many countries, Japan’s varied traditional and contemporary theatre scene has adapted variably, and regionally, to the ongoing crisis.
In the early months of the pandemic, there was unfortunate unity: cancellations, postponements, reduced seating and risk-averse spectators. However soon Shochiku and Takarazuka had returned to live performances, and an array of hall regulations was introduced and amended to insure fever-free, socially distanced, stage-distanced spectators. Sporadic clusters occurred, but Japanese small and large theatres returned to live performances to somewhat reduced spectators long before most of the rest of the world. From the early “lost in pandemic” days chronicled in a Waseda Theatre Museum exhibit, producers managed to salvage productions and even theatre festivals, adapting to more domestic, small-cast, and hybrid forms. Producers navigated various types of new funding, as well as ongoing revisions to hall regulations.
At the same time, performers were discovering new ways to continue their craft. Traditional performers found on Zoom and other online tools the ability to foster fandom and even teach, both in Japan and overseas. Impressive videography with multiple cameras enabled capture of live theatre capable of streaming to paying customers, once a luxury of only Shochiku, the Met Opera, Takarazuka, or National Theatre budgets. The Japan Foundation’s Stages Beyond Borders project streamed archived and newly commissioned performing arts to hundreds of thousands of viewers worldwide, enjoying multiple language translations. Ironically, the famous barriers to scholars and tourists in Japan led to extraordinary online resources and collaborations by performers seeking to connect with international artists.
Viewed from a historical perspective of other theatrical crises like the Meiji Restoration theatre reforms, Kanto earthquake, second world war, and triple disaster of Fukushima, we hope to analyze Japan’s “radical conservatism” regarding theatrical traditions old and new. This panel introduces case-studies: Noh-kyogen teachers, Miyagi Satoshi's Hamlet, and a streaming new Noh play-that demonstrate how performers, teachers, directors, and spectators of J-theatre “with Covid” not only coped but created solutions that may outlast the pandemic.
The ongoing Covid-19 crisis stimulated noh-kyogen performers to attempt innovative methods of training, performance, and fan support. This paper examines tthree years of such experiments, and posits how the noh-kyogen world has been irrevocably changed by these strategies of coping “with Covid.”
Paper long abstract:
Noh-kyogen performers have proven their resiliency for over six hundred years of shifting patronage, artistic tastes, and technologies. Although already suffering diminished professionals and students for decades, the ongoing Covid-19 crisis stimulated noh-kyogen performers, producers, and scholars to attempt radically innovative methods of training, performance, and fan support. This paper examines the fruit of such experiments (and resuscitation of older traditions), and posit how the noh-kyogen world has been irrevocably changed by these strategies of coping “with Covid.”
As with performing arts around the world, March-April 2020 marked the beginning of widespread cancellations, postponements of long-planned performances. Noh and kyogen were especially vulnerable to governmental restrictions. As with most dance forms, archived performances, even with multiple cameras, lacked the aural and somatic intensity of live performance. Elderly disciples were unwilling to risk face-to-face lessons, or even travel to get to theatres, while the close proximity to singers’ and drummer’s booming voices were deemed too risky to even long-term fans. Kyogen actors attempting to bring joy in dark times found spectators’ reactions muted, both physically distanced and covered by masks.
Yet mostly younger performers began early on to engage in online, streaming of spectatorless performances, regular YouTube salons and live podcasts, and collaborations with contemporary visual and technology creatives. A surge of plays from the repertoire or newly written ones depicted historic pandemics banished through prayers and benevolent supernatural beings. Meanwhile unprecedent national and local funding enabled casting a wider net for new spectators, and luring reluctant regulars.
Meanwhile international fans and disciples found new ways of both watching, practicing, and learning. The Japan Foundation’s multi-lingual Stages Beyond Borders introduced traditional arts, reaching hundreds of thousands worldwide. For a fee, foreign students could study chant online, with scripts and etiquette lessons available. As educational tools, Hawaii, Singapore, and New York’s Japan Society produced recorded kyogen performances, providing English titles and interpreted talkback sessions.
After reviewing these desperate and deliberate ways of coping, I will attempt to assess fundamental changes may be permanent, including the rise of social media, online educational resources, reversed authority of seniority, and ongoing collaborations.
How did the state of uncertainty caused by the pandemic affect renditions of Shakespeare’s tragedy, a play which was written between outbreaks of the bubonic plague? This paper considers the ways in which Miyagi’s Hamlet was shaped by and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paper long abstract:
How could a contemporary Japanese production of Hamlet affirm its raison d'être in the context of the pandemic when theatre going was seen as an ‘unessential’ activity and many art events were cancelled, curtailed or forced to find other means of representation? How did the state of uncertainty caused by the pandemic affect renditions of Shakespeare’s tragedy, a play which was written between outbreaks of the bubonic plague? These questions were central to Satoshi Miyagi’s 2021 production of Hamlet. This paper considers the ways in which Miyagi’s Hamlet was shaped by and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Satoshi Miyagi first staged Hamlet in 1990 as the debut production of his Ku Na’uka theatre company. The production experimented with the division of characters into speakers and movers which became a dominant feature in Ku Na’uka’s stage history. Miyagi chose to stage Hamlet again for his first Shakespearean production as director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre (SPAC) in 2008. He revived the play at SPAC in 2015 and from January to March 2021, drawing on these latter two versions, he re-worked the production at SPAC in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Prizewinning novelist Sawanishi Yuten’s short story was adapted for the Noho Theatre Group’s 40th anniversary featuring noh master Matsui Akira in 2022. After a ten-minute digest version is shown, the novelist and adapter/director discussing its resonances with the contemporary Covid crisis.
Paper long abstract:
Subaru Prizewinning novelist Sawanishi Yuten’s short story “雨の中、傘の下“（Under an umbrella, in the rain）was adapted to a solo noh performance as part of the Noho Theatre Group’s fortieth year celebration in 2022. After ten-minute digest version of the 25-minute performance is shown, novelist Sawanishi joins adapter/director Jonah Salz to discuss the production process and performance. Although the story was inspired by the World Trade Center destruction, with echoes of the Fukushima triple disaster, today they will focus on the play’s resonances with the contemporary Covid crisis.
First streamed live on March 24, 2022 and now archived at link below, the Noho Theatre Group’s Under an Umbrella, in the Rain was a spectator-less performance filmed a month earlier. It was part of project on Covid-19 influence on arts and media, funded by Ryukoku University’s Socio-cultural Research Institute (SCRI). Performed by an on-stage narrator and masked noh actor Matsui Akira, it is the tale of a Woman, blinded by toxic rain after a man-made/natural catastrophe. While gripping an umbrella for dear life, she still seeks to communicate with a lover lost in the confusion of the island disaster. The online streaming and on demand video form of the production—a first in Noho’s 40 year history—was a consequence of the pandemic’s ongoing risk to rehearsals and spectators. Moreover, the themes of isolation, environmental destruction, and unknowing perseverance seemed to resonate with the times.
『雨の中、傘の下』Under an Umbrella, in the Rain English subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuj8P6uCE98
『雨の中、傘の下』Under an Umbrella, in the Rain subtitle Japanese
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