Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Stage Aug 30, 2012
'Our Planet' director focuses on Japan's locals
by Nobuko Tanaka
Just three years ago, in 2009, Yukio Shiba burst to stardom at age 27 with his masterful first play, “Waga Hoshi” (“Our Planet”), which premiered in Tokyo and the following year scooped Japanese contemporary theater’s prestigious Kishida Kunio Award. “Up until then, even in ...
Stage Aug 9, 2012
Kabuki's 10th Mitsugoro shows off his family's dance moves
by Rei Sasaguchi
Bando Mitsugoro X (born Hisashi Morita, 56) succeeded to his current stage name 11 years ago, after the death of his father Mitsugoro IX. He was rigorously trained in Kabuki acting and dancing by his father, who had learned the trade under the renowned ...
Stage Aug 3, 2012
World Ballet Festival shows how Japan has jetéd its way onto the world stage
by Kris Kosaka
Ballet lovers faced a difficult choice this week when two productions of “Don Quixote” were performed in Tokyo. The shows heralded the opening of the 13th World Ballet Festival, whose main program began Thursday and closes with a Special Gala on Aug. 16. Fans ...
Stage Jul 19, 2012
China and Japan: A 40-year friendship worth singing about
by Kris Kosaka
Forget allegations of spies and economic intrigue. Put aside the controversial Senkaku Islands and celebrate as the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing unites with the New National Theatre in Tokyo to commemorate the 40th anniversary of normalized relations between Japan and ...
Stage Jul 12, 2012
Public theater takes on a leading role
by Nobuko Tanaka
Once upon a time, Japanese contemporary theater shared the limelight with youth-cultural movements that were rocking the nation. Back then, in the late 1960s and ’70s, the avant-garde works of the angura (underground) theater scene had such an affinity with the radical student movement ...
Stage Jul 5, 2012
Big theater names and 'Super Kabuki'
by Rei Sasaguchi
At the start of the performances at Tokyo’s Shimbashi Embujo Ichikawa theater in June this year, Kamejiro II (born Takahiko Kinoshi), 36, took the name Ichikawa Ennosuke IV, while his uncle Ichikawa Ennosuke III, famously known as the founder of “Super Kabuki,” took the ...
Stage Jun 1, 2012
Shizuoka eyes theatrical bridge over to Avignon
by Nobuko Tanaka
Stranger things have happened, and in the near future a vibrant cultural bridge across Eurasia may be built between the city of Shizuoka in the beautiful foothills of Mount Fuji, and ancient Avignon in the artists’ mecca of Provence in the South of France. ...
Stage May 25, 2012
Play reveals manzai's U.S. roots
by Edan Corkill
Watching the fast-paced, two-person manzai routines that characterize much of Japanese TV comedy these days, it’s difficult to imagine that two key influences on that genre’s birth were stars of cinema’s silent era: Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. It’s also difficult to imagine that ...
Stage May 24, 2012
Matthias von Stegmann creates a modern German myth for Japan
by Kris Kosaka
Modern and mythological perspectives converge as the New National Theatre Tokyo’s Opera Division looks to its past to envision the future. From June 1-16, German-Japanese director Matthias von Stegmann guides this new vision of Richard Wagner’s opera “Lohengrin,” last produced at NNTT in 1997, ...
Stage May 17, 2012
There is trouble on Kafka's shore
by Nobuko Tanaka
Seventy-six-year-old theater director Yukio Ninagawa is famed and honored the world over for his magnificently visualized stagings of Shakespeare and Ancient Greek tragedies — as well as modern Japanese plays. He was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2002, and has ...
Stage May 10, 2012
Shakespeare's Globe hails a Japanese 'Coriolanus'
by Victoria James
In fewer than 100 days time, athletes and spectators from around the world will be pouring into London to fill the great steel and concrete “O” of the Olympic Stadium. But there’s another major venue that is already welcoming international audiences and stars — ...
Stage May 4, 2012
Monkeying around on the stage
by Nobuko Tanaka
Britain’s longest-serving theater critic, Michael Billington of The Guardian newspaper, is famous for not lavishing praise on his subjects easily or often. So when Billington tipped his hat to “Kafka’s Monkey” in a 2009 review — rhetorically asking, “Is there anything Kathryn Hunter can’t ...