Kiyomi Hotta (堀田清美) | Kishida Prize-Winning Playwright Guide

Introduction

Kiyomi Hotta (堀田清美, 1922--2009) was a Japanese playwright who came to the professional stage through workplace theater. His play The Island (島), staged by the Mingei company in 1957, won the 4th edition of what is now the Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 1958. At that time the prize was still called the Shingeki Playwriting Award; it took Kishida's name in 1961 and its present name in 1979.

The Island is a play about the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is one of the four works in the English anthology After Apocalypse: Four Japanese Plays of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Early Life and Career

Hotta was born on March 13, 1922, in Hiroshima Prefecture, and graduated from a commercial school in Hiroshima. He joined Hitachi's Kameari factory, where he founded a drama club and became active in the movement for autonomous workplace theater (自立演劇). His works include Konezumi (子ねずみ).

In 1954 he joined the Mingei theater company (劇団民芸), founded in 1950, whose leading figures included Jukichi Uno and Osamu Takizawa. Reference works name Hotta among the playwrights from worker backgrounds who helped make Mingei a leading progressive company in the shingeki (modern theater) movement.

The Prize-Winning Work

Hotta published The Island in 1954 and revised it for the Mingei production of 1957. The revised version won the prize the following year.

Library catalogs classify the play under the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A 1989 student newspaper preview of a University of Kansas production gives the fullest account we could find in English: the play centers on a man named Kurihara, exposed to radiation at Hiroshima, who has to live with the knowledge that he might die of it, and on two families trying to rebuild ordinary lives after the bombing. We have not checked this summary against the text of the play.

Major Works

The Island (島) -- The prize-winning play, first published in 1954 and revised for its 1957 staging by Mingei.
Konezumi (子ねずみ) -- Listed among his works in Japanese reference sources.

How to Experience Their Work

The Island is available in English in After Apocalypse: Four Japanese Plays of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, selected, translated, and introduced by David G. Goodman (Columbia University Press, 1986; new paperback edition, Cornell East Asia Series no. 71, 1994). The volume also contains The Head of Mary by Chikao Tanaka, The Elephant by Minoru Betsuyaku, and Nezumi Kozō by Makoto Satoh.

For those interested in Japanese theatrical scripts and discovering more playwrights, visit our script library where you can search for works by various Japanese playwrights.