OSANAI KAORU

(1881–1928)

Osanai Kaoru was a playwright, director, and literary critic known for his innovations in MODERN THEATER. He edited a literary magazine in high school and at Tokyo University was an English student of Natsume Soseki, met Mori Ogai, worked in stage production, and wrote poetry and fiction. After graduation, along with Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, he helped launch the literary journal Shinshicho (New Trends of Thought). His autobiographical novel Okawabata (By the Banks of the Great River, 1909) was serialized in the Yomiuri newspaper. Teaming up with kabuki actor Ichikawa Sadanji, who had recently returned from living in Europe, he formed a new theater named the Jiyu gekijo (Free Theater), modeled on the naturalist theaters of Paris (Theatre Libre) and Berlin (Freie Buhne). The first play performed there was Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman, a work that was instrumental in Japanese theater reform. Osanai later traveled to Europe to observe Western theater firsthand, and in 1924 was instrumental in establishing the Tsukiji shogekijo (Tsukiji Little Theater) following the Kanto Earthquake. A MODERN THEATER with state-of-the-art lighting and technical capabilities, the Tsukiji Little Theater, which Osanai limited to performances of Western dramas in translation, polarized Japanese shingeki playwrights and the rifts continued well after his untimely death.