South China Morning Post: Amorbid if unacknowledged curiosity in watching a play by Yukio Ninagawa is wondering if his cast will all make it through the performance: the youngest actor is a pensioner, the oldest is 88. A trained nurse waits in the wings - just in case. But then Ninagawa, who brings his acclaimed Saitama Gold Theatre to Hong Kong for the first time next month, has made a late career out of not acting his age.
2 comments:
SO, the title was a little bit misleading and incorrect, but oh well. This was a really cute article. It is so often that we think of the older generation as useless people that can't do anything for themselves, but that really isn't true. My grandfather built his own house when he was 60, and just recently he put an addition while he was in his late 70s! There is nothing useless about the older generation. They are fit and capable if the opportunity arises.
It is fantastic that this director has given a purpose to the lives of these people. As the younger generation, we like to push the past over to someone else to take care of and stick them in a nursing home where you can go visit from time to time, but they are really a valuable resource to us all. It will be a shame when all the people who lived through a world war are gone. How are we supposed to learn from them then? Older generations are the best form of information out there. They have first hand experience and real emotions about it. History would be way more fun if there was someone who had lived it telling me instead of the young professor reading out of the text book. It just seems silly to ignore such a treasure of our society like that.
It was really interesting to see how relevant Ninagawa has made his work, and to get sort of an inside perspective on Japan's culture, especially their history in terms of the war and how it has affected the entire country generationally. It was also cool to get a little insight on what the general attitude is towards the older generation - in China the classical ideal is that the utmost respect should be given to those who are older. I couldn't say how well people follow that today, but it's an interesting comparison to the culture here, where there seems to be a lot of clashing between generations, whether it's blame for the current state of affairs or complaints about technology. NInagawa is taking his view on the matter in a very cool way, and bringing attention to it as much as possible.
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