Hinemi by Akio Miyazawa: Plot and Kishida Prize | Play Guide

Introduction

Akio Miyazawa (宮沢章夫, 1956-2022) occupied a distinctive niche in Japanese contemporary theater as a playwright, director, and essayist. His play Hinemi (ヒネミ), which won the 37th Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 1993, is a quiet memory play about a town that no longer exists, and about a man trying to draw it back onto a map.

This overview looks at Hinemi as a standalone work and in the context of Miyazawa's career.

The Playwright: Akio Miyazawa in Context

Akio Miyazawa came to prominence in the mid-1980s with the unit Radical Gaziberibimba System (ラジカル・ガジベリビンバ・システム), which he started with Naoto Takenaka and Seiko Ito, and for which he wrote and directed every production. In 1990 he began working with Yuenchi Saisei Jigyodan (遊園地再生事業団), the theater unit that would premiere Hinemi.

Miyazawa was also a prominent essayist and cultural writer. His books include Ushi e no Michi and Nippon Sengo Subculture Shi (a history of postwar Japanese subculture), and his Jikan no Kakaru Dokusho, a study of Riichi Yokomitsu's story "Machine," won the Ito Sei Literary Prize. He also taught at Waseda University.

Analyzing Hinemi: Plot and Structure

Hinemi was first staged in 1992 by Yuenchi Saisei Jigyodan, directed by Miyazawa with Yoichi Nukumizu in the lead. It was revived in 1995 with Hajime Yamazaki in the lead. In the Kishida Prize, it shared the 37th award with Yu Miri's Festival for the Fish.

The play centers on the memory of Hinemi (日根水), a small town where the protagonist, Satake, spent his childhood, and which has since disappeared. It opens with scenes of Satake's childhood and moves to the adult Satake, who appears to work for a map-making organization. On his own time he is drawing a map to recreate the lost town, and he tries to explain the place to a colleague.

Soon the boundary between past and present begins to blur. Two threads run through the play: the mystery of the death of his brother, which is missing from his memory, and a girl who has the same name as the vanished town.

Language and Silence

The play proceeds quietly, through the small misunderstandings and the repeated "Eh?" of people asking each other to say something again, which are characteristic of Miyazawa's theater.

Legacy and Significance

Miyazawa returned to the same setting in Hinemi no Shonin (The Merchant of Hinemi, 1994) and Mitsu no Nagareru Chi (Land Where Honey Flows, 1996), a group that can be called the "Hinemi plays."

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