ABOUT THE PLAY
"Educating Mad Persons" is the only puppet play written by renowned playwright, poet, stage and film director Shuji Terayama. This 1962 play, one of the best among Terayama's creations, tells the story of a family informed by their doctor that one of their members may be mad on account of a hereditary reason. After this diagnosis, everyone in the family starts acting exactly like everyone else, hiding his or her own physical handicap or mental complex, to avoid being identified as the mad person. The play suggests how modern social structures and labels oppress human individuality.
With this production, created almost 20 years after Terayama's death, we attempt to revive the playwright's spirit in the form of a modern comic opera. Using six puppets and six kuroko's (black-masked puppeteers), the production also features 15 original songs, live music with Japanese drums and cymbals, as well as modern dances rooted in the techniques of traditional Japanese Noh and Kabuki theatre. "Educating Mad Persons" offers a simple story rich with meanings that may be enjoyed and understood both by adults and children.
@
REVIEW
@
Shuji Terayama
Terayama was born in Aomori, a rural
area in the northern part of Japan, in 1935. He made his name
as a poet while still a student at Waseda University, Tokyo.
In 1967, however, he dropped out to establish an experimental
theatre group called "Tenjo Sajiki" (The Top Floor
Gallery). He went on to spearhead the avant-garde arts movement
as both a playwright and stage-director. His controversial book
Encouraging the Young to Leave Home attracted a number of young
people to "Tenjo Sajiki" but was criticized by broader
Japanese society. His primary stage creations are "Knock",
"A Blind Man's Epistle", "A Record of Contagious
Diseases" and "Servants' Lessons". His film creations
include "Let's Throw Books Away and Come Out to Town"
and "The Death in a Rural Country". He was also famous
as a horseracing and boxing commentator. Shuji Terayama died
May 5, 1983. In 1997 a Memorial Museum dedicated to him opened
in Misawa City, his birthplace.
@
Show Ryuzanji
Show Ryuzanji is a stage director, actor,
the artistic director of the theatre group "Ryuzanji Company",
Vice-Chair of the Japan Stage Directors Association and Director
of the Japan Theatre Companies Association. He was born in 1947
in Kumamoto, the southernmost of the Japanese main islands. He
left the Economics Dept. of Aoyama University mid-term to join
Jokyo Gekijo (Theatre of Circumstances), then moved to Waseda
Shou-Gekijo (Waseda Little Theatre). After establishing his own
theatre company Engekidan (The Theatre Troupe) in 1970, he has
continually been at the forefront of the second generation of
Japan's small theatre movement. In 1984, he started the production
company, "Ryuzanji Company", to facilitate a horizontal
affiliation among "small theatre activists". As a stage
director, his credits include "Last Asia", "The
Blue Beard's Castle", "The Terayama" and "The
End of an Era, 2001". He has also appeared in a number of
plays, films and TV dramas as a powerful character actor.