During the five years he was Artistic Director of Setagaya Public Theatre, 61-year-old Makoto Sato began calling and e-mailing his old friend and stage colleague Renji Ishibashi, 63, in an attempt to persuade him to take the role of King Lear, with him (Sato) as director.
Although the two had often worked together to great acclaim, with Ishibashi notably taking the lead role in Sato's "A Life in the Theatre" by David Mamet at the theatre in 1997, Ishibashi stalled. His hesitation, it seems, was due to a reluctance to portray his own personal mortality and aging through the dramatic prism of the quintessentially aged, sorrowful and increasingly distracted figure of King Lear.
However, despite Ishibashi confiding in a recent interview that he was worried about playing King Lear because he was afraid he "could not hide anything," and that he felt "timid to disclose my real side too much through this dramatic masterpiece," he eventually gave in, resulting in the current production of King Lear at the Setagaya Public Theatre, which is now under the artistic direction of Mansai Nomura, who took over in April 2002.