Ryo Iwamatsu (岩松了): The Domestic Absurd

Introduction

Ryo Iwamatsu (岩松了, born 1952) is a playwright, director, and actor. He received the 33rd Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 1989 for Futon to Daruma (蒲団と達磨 / Futon and Daruma), a play that begins from an unusually frank premise: a marriage coming apart over the husband's sexual demands, on the night of his daughter's wedding.

Iwamatsu is often placed in the theater of the 1990s. Waseda University's Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum describes that decade as one in which, after the frantic performances of the 1980s, a calmer form of theater known as "quiet theatre" (静かな演劇, shizuka na engeki) appeared, and it names him among the playwrights of the period, alongside Akio Miyazawa, Oriza Hirata, Koji Hasegawa, and Masataka Matsuda. Iwamatsu himself uses a different word for what he writes: the absurd.

Early Life and Career

Born on March 26, 1952, in Kawatana, Nagasaki Prefecture, Iwamatsu entered the Russian department of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies but did not graduate. He joined the company On Theatre Jiyu Gekijo in 1971 and left in 1973, then belonged to Tokyo Kandenchi (東京乾電池) from 1978 to 1992.

He began writing and directing at Tokyo Kandenchi in 1986 with a trilogy of plays. After going freelance he worked in producer-led projects such as the Naoto Takenaka no Kai and Ta Manine productions. His career has always combined writing and directing with acting.

The Kishida Prize-Winning Work: Futon to Daruma (蒲団と達磨)

Futon to Daruma was written in 1988, when Iwamatsu was 36, and won the 33rd Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 1989.

In Iwamatsu's own summary, published in the preface to its sequel, the play is about Yukiko, the second wife of a high school teacher named Nomura. On the night of the wedding of Kasumi, Nomura's daughter by his first wife, Yukiko tells her husband she wants to live apart. She can no longer bear his sexual demands.

Iwamatsu says he wrote the play because, while many plays deal with sex, few deal with the sex life of a father. A man who is supposed to be the unshakable head of a household agonizes, as one human being, over his own desire. In that, he writes, there is something that could be called either tragedy or comedy.

The Kobe Shimbun describes the play as an absurdist work and reports that Minoru Betsuyaku, then a member of the selection committee, praised it highly, although Iwamatsu considers his own style different from Betsuyaku's.

Twenty-seven years later Iwamatsu wrote a sequel, Katei-nai Shisso (家庭内失踪, published 2016). Now it is Nomura who is troubled by the decline that comes with age, a reversal of the couple's earlier positions, and the married Kasumi has come back to the family home. Iwamatsu noticed during rehearsals that this situation resembled Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, a likeness he says he had not intended.

Theatrical Style and Philosophy

The publisher's description of Iwamatsu's collected plays gives a useful account of his method: the plays depict what looks like unremarkable daily life and bring to the surface the madness, small malice, desire, and frayed relationships hidden within it. The same description quotes his own definition: "To believe only in what can be seen -- that is what I consider the theater of the absurd."

That definition is worth keeping in mind for readers who come to him through the label "quiet theater." The ordinary setting is not the point in itself. Futon to Daruma uses a family wedding night to put a blunt, private conflict on stage.

Major Works

The following plays give a sense of the range of his career:

Ocha to Sekkyo (お茶と説教, 1986) -- his debut work
Futon to Daruma (蒲団と達磨, 1988) -- 33rd Kishida Kunio Drama Award
Kowareyuku Otoko (こわれゆく男) and Hato o Kau Shimai (鳩を飼う姉妹), both 1993 -- Kinokuniya Theater Award, individual prize
Terebi Deizu (テレビ・デイズ, 1996) -- Yomiuri Prize for Literature, 1998
Aoi Hitomi (青い瞳, 2015) -- written for Theatre Cocoon; a soldier returns from the battlefield to his family
Katei-nai Shisso (家庭内失踪, 2016) -- the sequel to Futon to Daruma
Usui Momoiro no Katamari (薄い桃色のかたまり, 2017) -- 21st Tsuruya Namboku Drama Award

Iwamatsu has also worked in film. He directed one segment of Bakayaro! 2 (1989), Ohaka to Rikon (お墓と離婚, 1993), and Tamio no Shiawase (たみおのしあわせ, 2007), and he won an Excellent Screenplay award at the Japan Academy Film Prize for Tokyo Biyori (東京日和).

As an actor he has appeared in recent films such as Shin Ultraman and We Made a Beautiful Bouquet (花束みたいな恋をした), and in television dramas such as Mame Tokoi to Her Three Ex-Husbands (大豆田とわ子と三人の元夫) and Jikou Keisatsu (時効警察).

How to Experience Their Work

Published Scripts: Iwamatsu's plays are published in Japanese. A collected volume of six plays from the 1980s and 1990s includes Ocha to Sekkyo, Futon to Daruma, Ice Cream Man, Ichigao no Saka, Gekko no Tsutsushimi, and Mizu no Tawamure, with an essay by the author. We could not confirm a published English translation of Futon to Daruma.

Film and Television: His acting work in Japanese film and television is the easiest way to encounter him without reading Japanese.

Theater Library (戯曲図書館): Our platform provides resources for discovering Japanese theatrical scripts. Browse our collection to explore the wider tradition of Japanese dramatic writing.

Ryo Iwamatsu (岩松了) | Kishida Prize-Winning Playwright Guide