Although the Catholic diplomat, poet and dramatist Paul Claudel (1868-1955) lived in Japan for only five years, from 1921-1925, when he was the French ambassador, the country's influence lingered all of his life.
As he later wrote: "No poet can have spent time in China and Japan without turning an eye to those materials which in those countries aid the outpouring of thought."
Among the first of these influenced works was the chamber play "The Woman and Her Shadow (La Femme et son ombre)," a work strongly indebted to noh drama and performed with Japanese music at the Imperial Theater in 1922. It was also the first of the author's experiments with the noh-like theme of double identity.