Kawakami Otojirō

Kawakami Otojirō

Kawakami and his wife

Kawakami Otojirō ( Japanese 川上音二郎 ; born 8. February 1864 in Hakata ( Fukuoka Prefecture ); died 11. November 1911 ) was a Japanese actor and theater entrepreneurs during the Meiji period .

life and work

Kawakami Otojirō was born in Hakata. He moved with his family to Tōkyō, where he joined the "Freedom and People's Rights Movement" (自由民 権 運動; Jijū minken undō) and traveled through Japan as an agitator for the movement. He later appeared as a humorous solo entertainer in the Yose style, with which he had great success.

In 1891, Kawakami brought together fellow actors and formed a theater group that traveled the country performing plays with current political content in a style similar to kabuki . In 1893 he traveled to Paris, studied the theater there and switched to an apolitical, melodramatic style on his return. During the Sino-Japanese War , he performed patriotic plays behind the front lines. Between 1899 and 1902 he made two trips to Europe and America with his theater troupe, with the repertoire mainly consisting of adapted Kabuki pieces.

Between 1903 and 1906 Kawakami performed the first professionally adapted plays by Shakespeare and other European authors with great success . He gradually gave up acting and focused on modernizing the way plays are performed and the way theaters are managed. So he became the "father of modern theater (新劇, Shingeki)" in Japan.

Kawakami's wife Sadayakko (1872–1946) is considered the first major modern actress in Japan.

Remarks

1. ↑ Yose (寄 席) describes a specifically Japanese performance style in which one or two people improvise and entertain the audience. As the name suggests, the viewer has a free choice of seats.

literature

• S. Noma (Ed.): Kawakami Otojirō . In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, ISBN 4-06-205938-X , p. 763.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Kawakami is the family name, Otojirō the first name.