We are now ready to consider 2017 King Lear performed by Shakespeare Company for Children and Adults; How was the director Yamasaki’s intention of creating his King Lear performance for children and adults reflected in the latest 2017 King Lear performance? It was taken place in the center of Tokyo and it lasted for 6 days. Yamasaki used Odashima’s translation of King Lear for his stage. It took 2 hours and 10 minutes without any intervals. As usual, there were no stage settings except for simple, wooden desks and chairs on the stage.
The casts were extremely unique: King Lear was played by Kiichi Fukui, Gloucester by Masahiro Totani, Edmund by Chikara Wakamatsu, Edgar by Yonho Cho. Also, Goneril and Cornwall, Reagan’s husband, by an actress, Norio Kato, Reagan and Albany, Goneril’s husband, by another actress, Akari Sato, Cordelia and Fool by a young and sensitive actress, …show more content…
He carefully selected an aspect of King Lear, which was peoples’ egocentrism and emphasized on it so that the stage would not be too long and too complicated for children. Although he did not make any explicit and unnatural cut from the original script, he divided the whole characters into two groups: bad-natured people and good-natured people. It cannot be helped that shades of goodness or badness, which we usually notice in watching King Lear characters, were lost because of the change. As for the translation, Yamasaki used Yushi Odashima’s version of King Lear to make a script for his stage and accepted some advice from Kazuko Matsuoka, another Shakespeare translator. Odashima’s version of King Lear translation is well-known for its funny wording, which were all in the original Shakespeare’s King Lear. Yamasaki, it seems, chose it to show the funny aspect of King Lear even if there is a little in the story to Japanese audience including
The casts were extremely unique: King Lear was played by Kiichi Fukui, Gloucester by Masahiro Totani, Edmund by Chikara Wakamatsu, Edgar by Yonho Cho. Also, Goneril and Cornwall, Reagan’s husband, by an actress, Norio Kato, Reagan and Albany, Goneril’s husband, by another actress, Akari Sato, Cordelia and Fool by a young and sensitive actress, …show more content…
He carefully selected an aspect of King Lear, which was peoples’ egocentrism and emphasized on it so that the stage would not be too long and too complicated for children. Although he did not make any explicit and unnatural cut from the original script, he divided the whole characters into two groups: bad-natured people and good-natured people. It cannot be helped that shades of goodness or badness, which we usually notice in watching King Lear characters, were lost because of the change. As for the translation, Yamasaki used Yushi Odashima’s version of King Lear to make a script for his stage and accepted some advice from Kazuko Matsuoka, another Shakespeare translator. Odashima’s version of King Lear translation is well-known for its funny wording, which were all in the original Shakespeare’s King Lear. Yamasaki, it seems, chose it to show the funny aspect of King Lear even if there is a little in the story to Japanese audience including