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Eiichiro Hirata, Professor, Faculty of Letters, Major in German Literature

Update: May 27,2013

Theatre research - Uncovering new realities in an increasingly theatricalized one

11 third-year students and 6 fourth-year students take part in the class and actively exchange opinions even when talking about difficult topics. From the standpoint of “All the world is a stage,” we also cover theories of the body, psychoanalytic theory, and discourse on melancholy.

Prof. Eiichiro Hirata and students

Japanese has many common expressions which relate to theatricality: “gekijou gata shakai” (dramatized society), “seiji pafōmansu” (political performance), “yarase” (staging), “yakuwari” (role), and “shinsai no katasutorofi” (catastrophe of the great earthquake), just to name a few. These expressions indicate how theatrical elements pervade contemporary society and our everyday lives. At the same time, as these words tend to refer to things that are “staged,” “exaggerated,” or “disastrous,” these theatrical aspects of society are often considered negative or superficial.

In theatre studies, we do not immediately reject the theatrical elements of reality that tend to be taken negatively, but instead uncover “other” realities that lie within these elements. For example, politics is often pegged as a “performance” lacking in political substance, but theatre studies have pointed out another aspect of this political performance, insisting that power structures are not using theatrical elements as measures outside of it, but that theatrical elements are intrinsic to power itself. The reason politicians tend toward specious language and showy behavior is not only because politics is corrupted, but also because it is related to the immanence of political power. Politicians try to make an appeal for their principles and policies to people in order to gain sympathy, but to do so, they need to express themselves appropriately. The question of how to express political messages effectively is inevitably related to a performative one how to act appropriately.

A similar attempt can be made for the concept of “tragedy.” Recent studies on tragedy focus on the question of people’s excessive desire to pursue themselves rather than the question of self-sacrifice for society as a whole, which used to be the focus in conventional tragedy theories. In the modern day, we are given the right to live freely as far as our means allow and as long as we do not cause trouble to others. However, the more we pursue this freedom, the more we feel something is missing and tend to seek something extra in ourselves. Recent studies of tragedy readdress the connection between desire and tragedy while considering this tendency to excessively pursue oneself as the unavoidable “fate” of the modern human condition.

As we can see from these examples, theatrical elements are closely related to modern society. Despite this, we tend to look at “theatrical aspects” as being fictitious, fanciful, or someone else’s problem. Theatre research looks squarely at issues that tend to get avoided and redefines them in profound ways.


Student’s Voice
Kanji Miyashita, Fourth-year student, Faculty of Letters, Major in German Literature

To discover a dramatic world


We at Professor Hirata’s seminar class study the theatrical aspects of the world based on a range of theories including tragic theory and performance theory.
We normally don’t think of reality as theatre. This is because we don’t think that ordinary daily life is dramatic. However, theatrical elements are often hidden in the casual, natural behavior of those standing right in front of you. In this seminar class, we search for the structure of theatricality through presentations and exchange of opinions, and as a result, we rediscover the world we live in and appreciate its wonders.
We are free to choose themes and literature for seminar class presentations, and other classmates make comments on these presentations. By repeating this process, we dig a little deeper into each other’s areas of interest.

*This article appeared in the 2013 spring edition (No.278) of “Juku”.
*Position titles, etc., are those at the time of publishing.