From West to Japan: Intercultural Endeavors in the Japanese Shingeki Movement

초록

This paper explores an early modern Japanese theatre from an intercultural perspective. The modern Japanese theatre offered a cultural battlefield in which divergent ideas regarding modernization (or westernization), in tandem with tradition, contested one another. Focusing on the synthesis of the “foreign” and the “familiar” in works of Tsubouchi Shōyō and Osanai Kaoru, I argue how their works can be read as intercultural endeavors. As theoretical tools, I borrow Patrice Pavis’ theory of an “hourglass” showing the way that one culture can appropriate or creatively adopt elements from other culture in order to create viable theatrical works. And I use Kobayashi Hideo’s notion of “Japanese spirit” which does not mean anti-western bias, unlike the total dismissal of the western values of traditionalism.Based on the ideas of “hourglass” and “Japanese spirit,” I discuss the philosophy and activities of two major theatre groups, Tsubouchi’s the Literary Society (Bungei Kyōkai) and Osanai’s Free Theatre (Jiyūgekijō) and Tsukiji Little Theatre, which are responsible for the development of modern Japanese theatre (shingeki), In investigating works of Tsubouchi and Osanai, I scrutinize their efforts towards a modern Japanese theatre movement (shingeki movement).The two modern innovators of Japanese theatre struggle with the “familiar” Japanese theatrical traditions and the “foreign” western theatrical elements and ideas in the course of modernization (or westernization), which is intercultural endeavors for making a modern Japanese dramaturgy and theatre in the early 20th century.

키워드