Kazuko Matsuoka is the Shakespeare translator whose work directors and actors in Japan most like to use. A 59-year-old Tokyo resident, she is the translator appointed for the Saitama Arts Theater's project of staging Shakespeare's complete works. To date, she has translated 11 of the plays, and is now working on "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," and correcting proofs of "The Merchant of Venice." She has also translated numerous modern plays and novels and is a recipient of the Yuasa Yoshiko Prize for the Translation of Foreign Plays.
TH: To begin at the beginning: What made you decide to translate Shakespeare?
KM: I was asked. In 1993, the Tokyo Globe asked me to translate "The Comedy of Errors." A little before that, I had been asked to translate "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" for the Bunkamura Theater Company. The offer from the Globe came later, but it happened that the Globe production was first.