Memories of the Stage in the Sunset: Asakusa Revue and Tales of the Revival of the Performing Arts after the War (Late 1940s-1950s)

Memories of the Stage in the Sunset: Asakusa Revue and Tales of the Revival of the Performing Arts after the War (Late 1940s-1950s)

A light was lit again amidst the rubble. Asakusa in the late 1940s. Laughter and dancing returned to the war-torn town. Review Popular Theater: Songs and skits. On a temporary stage, the injured and disfigured people who had returned from the war poured their lives into the performance. Is the art a form of entertainment or prayer? Or is it an act of the survivors re-enacting the voices of the dead? The audience also believed in rebirth amidst the ruins of the burnt ruins, and sank into the darkness of the theater.

There was a fever of improvisation on the Asakusa stage. The stars of the past, young men without names, girls who had lost their mothers, everyone became a part of the stage, and their lives were layered on top of their art. There is no style. It is not logic. It was simply the power to transcend the reality before one's eyes - that was the art.

But that scene was not eternal. As time went on, television came into homes and movies swept the streets. The lights of reviews gradually dimmed, and the tools shoved into a corner of a warehouse silently told the story of a vanished dream. The performers who lost their comrades-in-arms no longer dance in front of anyone.

Yet, the memory of the stage performance that was etched in Asakusa during that era still burns deep within the culture of the city. The role played by the performing arts in the burned-out city was the quiet determination of those who survived to live for the sake of the dead.