Paper short abstract:

Politically-oriented monologue in contemporary Japanese performing arts remains an elusive element deserving greater attention. This paper will address monologue and politics in modern and contemporary Japanese theatre using works by notable experimental theatre company Kamome Machine.

Paper long abstract:

Political theatre and politically-oriented monologue in contemporary Japanese performing arts remains a critically elusive element deserving greater attention. This paper will address the subject of monologue and politics in modern and contemporary Japanese theatre using works by notable experimental theatre company Kamome Machine. Kamome Machine, active since 2011, began with a historically important site-specific work of performance, Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, in which excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s play were performed on the edge of the exclusion zone of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster following the Great Tōhoku earthquake. Hagiwara and the company’s lead actor, Honami Shimizu, have backgrounds not only in experimental theatre but also dance and intermedial performance. The company’s sensibilities have been shaped by international post-dramatic trends that stem from post-Heiner Müller and Beckett orientations, but also political and intermedial practices associated with butō, molecular theatre, and other specifically Japanese practices. The latter will receive attention not yet adequately disseminated in contemporary theatre and performance studies at present.

This paper will construct a critical timeline of the company’s activities, from site-specific, to installation sound performance, to theatre-based works, in order to present one outstanding case of a company addressing the often-unclear question of what might constitute political theatre in Japan today through performance experiment. Furthermore, this paper will provide analysis of the most recent production by the company, Oregayo (2022) to articulate directions in politically-engaged performance through the incarnation of historical texts, here the Constitution of Japan. This paper presents the argument that Kamome Machine’s approach to monologue highlights how individual futility can be the foundation for acts of performative incarnation of politically-charged site, text, and history. Simone Weil, a reference point for some of the company’s works, but also Arthur Schopenhauer and Frank Ruda’s pessimistic theories about individual freedom help underscore how contemporary artists in Japan develop work from within ideas of futility.