Thursday, January 19, 2017
A Golden Age of Theater for Japan’s Seniors
The Theatre Times: Arts promoter, Taneo Kato came up with the idea for 10,000 Gold Theater when he had a “flash of inspiration” four years ago. He was watching a performance of Hamlet in which stage icon Yukio Ninagawa directed members of the Saitama Gold Theater and Saitama Next Theater — troupes made up of older and younger actors that he formed in 2006 and 2009, respectively, after becoming artistic director at Saitama Arts Theater in 2006.
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From what i observed when I was researching Bunraku puppet theatre for IB Theatre, Japanese culture and traditional entertainment is deeply rooted in theatricality. I observed this in Bunraku theatre itself which is very realistic while being highly stylized, and which takes after the traditional Noh Theatre over-the-top chanting and caricatural masks. This theatrical sensisbility I believe extends over into popular media like tv shows which feature caricatural people or which put people into crazy situations. I find it interesting to not that with anime and manga, Japan is one of the largest producers of fantasy and science fiction which marvel at least my mind.
On another note, I think it is great to create more opportunities for people of all ages to become performers. While studying at CMU, I feel like it is very easy to start thinking that there only exist actors aged 18-22, and thus when a play calls for older people, we use wigs and makeup. I know that pert of this is the necessity of being an educational theatre program, but I have seen several professional theatrical productions where an older character was played by a young actor, and it was visible. I have to say I really don't believe there is some kind of discrimination conspiracy against older actors in theatre, but really from a practical standpoint, I think we should resist the urge to hire that budding young upstart actor for a role he isn't meant to play.
Managing a cast that large takes an insurmountable amount of skill and that's with professional actors. Taking amateurs not to mention senior citizens and creating such a large performance is incredible. Taking the inspiration and using it to motivate a performance all the way through the end despite all the obstacles facing him leaves me impressed with Nozoe’s passion. Some of the actors even had dementia and the accommodations necessary for them to perform on stage is just another one of obstacles that leave me impressed with Nozoe’s passions. Even his content with the inherent mistakes that come with such a challenging cast is impressive. If you couldn't tell, overall I’m impressed.The community benefits as well as it is something for the elderly to participate in, keep them movie and alive. In a sarcastic sense but in the most serious sense that it gives their life's purpose and excitement that senior citizens sometimes lose as they age.
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