Juro Kara, who helped form Japan’s postwar avant-garde theater, defiantly but playfully remodeling the essence of Kabuki aesthetics into trendy storytelling, has died. He was 84.
The playwright, director and troupe chief died late Saturday from a blood clot within the mind after he collapsed at house and was rushed to a Tokyo hospital on May 1, his theater group Karagumi stated in a press release on Sunday.
Kara, whose actual identify was Yoshihide Otsuru, rose to stardom within the so-called Japanese underground motion of the Nineteen Sixties referred to as “un-gura,” characterised by a kitsch rebellious type additionally present in his contemporaries Shuji Terayama and Tadashi Suzuki.
Kara’s colourful exhibits, usually in makeshift tents evocative of a touring circus, rejected the established theatrical modes then dominating modernizing Japan that have been largely Western, center class and well-behaved.
His performs, reminiscent of “Koshimaki Osen,” have been characterised by a uncooked energetic physicality, blatantly devoid of any pretense at naturalism.
Kara as soon as in contrast his method to “a womb covered in blood.” His theater got here to be referred to as “the pink tent.” A wandering group would placed on his exhibits wherever the tents went up, most famously in a spot close to a shrine in Shinjuku in downtown Tokyo.
Audiences discovered themselves immersed in otherworldly, dreamlike settings. The flashy posters that artist Tadanori Yokoo usually created for Kara’s works exemplified that signature pop surrealist type.
Kara’s group continues to be lively at the moment, performing exhibits that keep on his legacy. His theater additionally served as a breeding floor for a few of Japan’s high actors, together with Kaoru Kobayashi and the late Jinpachi Nezu.
Born in Tokyo, Kara majored in theater at Meiji University in Tokyo, which boasts an in depth archive of Kara’s works.
In 1983, Kara received the celebrated Akutagawa Award for brand new writers for his novel “Letters from Sagawa.” He additionally acted in varied movies, usually in bit character roles, together with “Demon Pond,” directed by Masahiro Shinoda.
Funeral preparations weren’t set however will probably be for household and mates, Karagumi stated. Kara is survived by his spouse Michiko, sons Gitan Otsuru and Sasuke Otsuru, and daughter Minion Otsuru, all actors.
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