Tanaka Chikao

Tanaka Chikao ( Japanese 田中 千 禾 夫 ; born October 10, 1905 in Nagasaki , Nagasaki Prefecture ; † November 29, 1995 , Tokyo Prefecture ) was a Japanese playwright and theater director. He was married to the playwright and writer Tanaka Sumie , née Tsujimura , since 1934 .

Life

Tanaka studied French literature at the renowned Keiō University . During his studies, he took part in the research seminar for Shingeki , literally new theater by Shishi Bunroku and Kishida Kunio . He made his debut in 1933 with the play Ofukuro ( お ふ く ろ , "mother"). In 1934 he married and moved with his wife to Fujisawa in Kanagawa Prefecture . During the war, he was evacuated to Hiroshima Prefecture. His writing activity, which came to a standstill during the war, he resumed immediately after the end of the war. One of his main works Kumo no hatate ( 雲 の 涯 ) was created.

From 1951 in particular, he was a member of Kishida Kunios Bungaku-za for several years , where, in addition to French dramas, he also studied the works of Eugene O'Neill , Federico Garcia Lorcas and Luigi Pirandellos . From 1951 he was director, dramaturge, author and acting teacher of the Haiyū-za founded by Senda Koreya . For this he wrote pieces with which he distinguished himself as a successful representative of the modern Shingeki theater. His writing style was shaped at this time by existentialism , for example in Kyōiku ( 教育 , "education"), for which he received the 1954 Yomiuri Literature Prize. From the mid-1950s Tanaka taught at the "Tōhō Gakuen College of Drama and Music" ( 桐 朋 学園 芸 術 短期 大学 , Tōhō Gakuen Geijutsu Tanki Daigaku ) in Chōfu drama. In his play Maria no kubi ("The Head of Maria", 1959), for which he was awarded the Kishida Acting Prize, Tanaka dealt with the atomic bombing of Nagasaki .

For his theoretical work Gekiteki buntairon josetsu ( 劇 的 文体 論 序 説 , about Introduction to the Dramatic Style) he received the Mainichi Culture Prize in 1978 . In 1980 he was awarded the Imperial Prize of the Japanese Academy of the Arts , to which he was accepted the following year. Also in 1981 he published an introduction to Shingeki theater under the title Shingeki kanshō nyūmon ( 新劇 鑑賞 入門 ).

After Tanaka's death, his wife, who was a Catholic, had a memorial stone erected in front of the Urakami Cathedral in Tanaka's hometown of Nagasaki.

Works (selection)

• Kumo no hatate ( 雲 の 涯 ), "The edge of a cloud (a play in one act)", translated by Noah S. Brannen, in: Japan Christian quarterly, 44-4
• Maria no kubi ( マ リ ア の 首 ), "The head of Mary, a Nagasaki fantasia", translated by David G. Goodman, in: Currency Press, Sydney
• “Four plays of Tanaka Chikao”, translated by Thomas J. Rimer, in: Monumenta Nipponica , 31-3

Web links

• Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., Siyuan Liu, Erin B. Mee: Modern Asian Theater and Performance 1900-2000 . A&C Black, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4081-7720-4 , pp. 48–49, limited preview in Google Book Search
• J. Thomas Rimer, Mitsuya Mori, M. Cody Poulton: The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama . New edition Columbia University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-231-53713-1 , pp. 275–6, limited preview in Google Book Search

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} 田中 千 禾 夫 . In: デ ジ タ ル 版 日本人 名 大 辞典 + Plus at kotobank.jp. Retrieved December 25, 2016 (Japanese). 
2. ↑ 田中 千 禾 夫 『マ リ ア の 首』 . In: Drama Interpretation. MAC - Misawa Actors Company, accessed December 25, 2016 (Japanese). 
3. ↑ Information according to the translation database of the Japan Foundation

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