Paper short abstract:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6XyHtPLKE