Performing Arts and Acting Theory: From the Late Showa Period to the Present Day

Performing Arts and Acting Theory: From the Late Showa Period to the Present Day

Taking Paul Claudel's words, "A play is a place where something happens," as a starting point, the inevitability of events and audience expectations in the performing arts are discussed. At the time, Japan was experiencing high economic growth, cultural diversity was expanding, and new expressions and avant-garde attempts were sprouting in the theater world. The experimental staging of Shuji Terayama and the underground theater of Juro Karo attracted attention, and unconventional stage productions appeared one after another. In the midst of these trends, actresses were considered to have the power to change the atmosphere of the stage not only by speaking the lines, but also by their appearance, their silence, and even the way they carried their gazes. Especially in the late Showa period, the presence of stage actresses was reevaluated in parallel with the spread of movies and television, and audiences were attracted by the "presence of life" that could not be conveyed throug
h video images. The stage was a place where live actors shared time and space, bringing unpredictable waves of emotion to the audience, and at the core of this was the "presence" of the actors.