Julie Iezzi, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa
Contemporary Tradition – Japanese Performance Genre Today: Session Three

Watch the video recording of the performance, Derailed that was discussed in the presentation here.

Abstract

Kyōgen actor Shigeyama Sennojō (1923-2010) was an advocate for creating new kyōgen plays with sharper satirical edges. He believed such plays were closer to what kyōgen must have been like in medieval Japan, prior to its designation as the “ceremonial art” (shikigaku) of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1868). As a performer, Sennojō broke many barriers in the kyōgen world, experimenting widely in the post-WWII era. He worked collaboratively with kabuki as well as contemporary actors, commedia del arte performers, opera singers and actors in the tradition. Sennojō’s son and grandson, Akira and Dōji, also continue to expand boundaries, while simultaneously maintaining the traditional core of kyōgen. Akira co-founded NOHO Theatre Company with director Jonah Salz in 1982, fusing noh and kyōgen convention with scripts of Becket, Shakespeare, Yeats and others. Dōji produces several productions annually under his own production company, Dōji Company, as well as collaborates nationally and internationally with numerous artists, including Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen.

The 2016-2017 academic year at the University of Hawai′i Dept. of Theatre and Dance featured, as the cornerstone of the Asian Theatre Program, intensive kyōgen training under Shigeyama Akira and Shigeyama Dōji, culminating in an English language production in April 2017 featuring three plays. The first, TWO GREAT LORDS (Futari Daimyō), is a traditional play, honoring the 600-year tradition of kyōgen. The second, a newly written kyōgen by Shigeyama Dōji called TWO MOUNTAIN PRIESTS (Futari Yamabushi), premiered in Kyoto in 2014 and demonstrates that “traditional” and “contemporary” ways of thinking are really two sides of a coin.

The third piece, DERAILED, written by Matthew Kelty and workshopped by the cast, is a contemporary kyōgen play set in Hawaiʻi, which fuses kyōgen convention with Hawaiian lore and current politics, honoring both the satirical nature of medieval kyōgen and the experimental spirit of my teacher, Sennojō, as well as his descendants.  This paper explores the process of writing and developing the play, setting it in the context of current political affairs and the Hawaiian renaissance in the state of Hawai′i, as well as the history and expectations of the University of Hawai′i’s Asian Theatre Program.