Political Theater in Japan: From Shimizu to Sakate

Introduction

Political theater occupies a complex position in Japan. Japanese theater has a long record of politically engaged playwriting, from the left-wing companies of the early twentieth century to playwrights who write about Okinawa, the emperor, and the 2011 nuclear disaster today.

From the postwar angura movement's rejection of established cultural institutions to contemporary playwrights' explorations of social issues, Japanese political theater offers a fascinating case study in how art engages with power. This article traces some major currents of political theater in Japan, focusing on the playwrights who have used the stage as a space for interrogating Japanese society, history, and identity.

The Foundations

Before and After the War

The history of political theater in modern Japan begins before World War II. Between about 1928 and 1932, shingeki, Japan's modern Western-influenced theater, became strongly politicized, as leftist intellectuals used its companies to push for socialism. The government arrested artists and suppressed leftist companies, and during the war almost all shingeki troupes were disbanded by the authorities.

Shingeki returned after the war, during the American occupation (1945-1952), with companies such as Bungakuza, Haiyuza, and Gekidan Mingei. Its audiences were organized in part through workers' theater councils (rōen), which bought blocks of tickets and mobilized union members to attend. Into the 1960s, this dependence pushed productions toward conservative leftism and socialist realism.

The 1960 Anpo Protests

The 1960 protests against the renewal of the Japan-US Security Treaty (Anpo) were a watershed moment for Japanese political culture, and they had a profound impact on the performing arts. Much of the shingeki community joined the protests. Younger members, who sympathized with the Zengakuren student federation, resented the Communist Party's passive protest policy, and after right-wing counter-protesters attacked a shingeki march on June 15, many of them broke away to form avant-garde troupes.

This break helped give birth to the underground theater (angura) movement. Artists like Juro Kara, Shuji Terayama, and Makoto Sato made theater that rejected the structures of establishment theater and reimagined the relationship between performers and audiences.

Kunio Shimizu: Anti-Establishment Youth on Stage

Kunio Shimizu (清水邦夫, 1936-2021) emerged from the ferment of the 1960s. In 1968 he and the director Yukio Ninagawa founded the company Gendaijin Gekijo (現代人劇場), and their Shinjo Afururu Keihakusa (真情あふるる軽薄さ), directed by Ninagawa in 1969, drew wide attention.

Shimizu's plays of the late 1960s and 1970s depicted anti-establishment young people. He won the 18th Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 1974 for Bokura ga Hijo no Taiga o Kudaru Toki (ぼくらが非情の大河をくだるとき).

The Quiet Politics of Oriza Hirata

Oriza Hirata's approach to political theater represents a significant departure from both the explicit ideology of shingeki and the radical gestures of angura. His "contemporary colloquial theater," a reaction against the boisterous Japanese theater of the 1980s, uses everyday Japanese speech, with overlapping dialogue, sentence fragments, and an understated tone.

His early play Citizens of Seoul (1989) shows how this can carry political weight: it examines Japan's sense of superiority over Korea during the colonial period, and it has sequels set in 1919 and 1929.

Tokyo Notes (1994), which won the 39th Kishida Prize in 1995, is set in an art museum in the near future, while a vast war destroys Europe. Its characters go about their lives in the museum and talk about ordinary things. The political content lies in the gap between what the characters discuss and what is happening in the world around them.

Yoji Sakate: The Activist Dramatist

Yoji Sakate (坂手洋二) represents an explicitly political strand of contemporary Japanese theater. He founded Rinkogun (燐光群) in 1983 and has written and directed almost all of its work since. His plays have addressed the Okinawa issue, the Self-Defense Forces, and religious issues, as well as the emperor's war responsibility in Tenno to Seppun (天皇と接吻).

Other works include Epitaph for the Whales (1993), which takes up the 1988 whaling ban and the reactions to it and began his "contemporary Noh" series, and The Last of the Okinawa Milk Plant (1998), about problems tied to the US military presence in Okinawa. His Kishida Prize came in 1991 for Breathless (ブレスレス).

Sakate has also worked internationally. The Japan Foundation reports that he has performed in 27 cities in 15 countries and made joint works with artists from other countries. Rinkogun has also staged foreign political plays, including The Laramie Project and Stuff Happens.

The Disaster and Its Aftermath

The triple disaster of March 11, 2011 -- the earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear meltdown -- became a major subject for Japanese theater.

Toshiki Okada wrote Current Location (現在地, 2012) in response to the disaster, and his company chelfitsch moved from Yokohama to Kumamoto afterward. Sakate's Dropping by the House and A Problem of Blood (both 2012) deal with the earthquake, including the fear of radiation and differences between generations. In New York, Shinsai: Theaters for Japan (2012) brought together Sakate, Hirata, and Okada to raise money for theater companies affected by the disaster.

The Kishida Prize has also recognized work on the subject: Norimizu Ameya's Blue Sheet (ブルーシート), created with high school students in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, and first performed on their school grounds, won in 2014, and Kenichi Tani's Fukushima Trilogy (福島三部作), whose parts are set in 1961, 1986, and 2011, won in 2020.

Indirect Strategies

Not all political theater in Japan announces itself. Some of the work above operates by indirect means:

The Historical Setting

Playwrights can address political concerns through history or allegory. Hirata's Citizens of Seoul looks at colonial attitudes through life in colonial Korea, and Sakate's Epitaph for the Whales treats the whaling ban in the form of a dream play.

What Is Left Unsaid

In Tokyo Notes, what the characters do not talk about is as important as what they do. The war in Europe stays in the background of ordinary conversation.

Contemporary Developments

The current generation of Japanese playwrights continues to develop new approaches to political theater. Satoko Ichihara addresses gender and sexuality, questioning male-centric and human-centric views of sex and reproduction; her Madama Butterfly (2021) challenges the orientalist portrayal of a Japanese woman in Puccini's opera and earlier versions of the story. Toshiki Okada's Enjoy (2006), about struggling young part-timers in a manga café, took up unemployment and temporary employment well before the disaster.

Conclusion

Political theater in Japan defies easy categorization. It deploys a range of strategies -- from Hirata's understated conversation to Sakate's direct engagement -- to engage audiences with the political dimensions of their lives.

For those interested in exploring politically engaged Japanese theater, our script library features works by many of the playwrights discussed in this article.