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November 22, 2024
 

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Nobuko Tanaka

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Nobuko Tanaka
Nobuko Tanaka is a stage writer who has regularly contributed contemporary theater and dance articles to The Japan Times since 2001. She also writes for several Japanese and overseas magazines and web sites. As a promoter, she takes Japanese artists to foreign theater festivals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 21, 2004
Making a spectacle of man's inhumanity to man
"Bent" is one of the outstanding theatrical creations of the 20th century. Ostensibly about the persecution of homosexuals and Jews under Hitler's dictatorship, what the play really addresses is the power -- in even the most disempowered circumstances -- of the individual and of love.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 24, 2003
Some timely lessons from 'Richard III'
In this column, the curtain rose on 2003 with a new production of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" directed by Yukio Ninagawa. Now, the final curtain of the year comes down here with another blockbuster from Japan's international-drama standard-bearer -- his version of Shakespeare's "The Life and Death...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 17, 2003
'50s cannibal masterpiece offers plenty to chew on
Down by Tokyo Bay, most people think of the industrial wasteland of Hamamatsucho merely as a convenient stop on the Yamanote Line, a station for changing onto the Haneda-bound monorail en route to faraway places. Theatergoers, though, and especially lovers of big, slick, Western-style productions, know...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 26, 2003
Everything you needed to know about 'Hamlet'
What is it about "Hamlet," Shakespeare's most famous drama, that obsesses Yukio Ninagawa, Japanese theater's global standard-bearer? The innovative director has already staged the play four times -- and his fifth take on the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark opened last week at the Bunkamura Theater Cocoon...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 12, 2003
A mini 'Mahabharata' of epic proportions
How is your "geijitsu no aki" going? If you haven't got out to enjoy the splendors of "artistic autumn" yet, the Ku Na'uka Theatre Company's new play, "Mahabharata-Nalacaritam (Prince Nala's Adventure)" is as romantic and colorful a spectacle as any laid on by nature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 5, 2003
A flying start to 'artistic autumn'
In Japanese, there is a saying "geijutsu no aki." Literally, it means "artistic autumn"; in practice it means autumn is the best time to enjoy the arts, when the weather is pleasant and bright before the hectic and cold yearend. This month -- with many foreign dance companies and contemporary performance...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 22, 2003
It's a man's, man's world . . . unfortunately
Last week I looked at two plays depicting the lives of women. This week, the focus is two excellent contemporary comedy dramas about modern Japanese history -- and that means it's big-shot male politicians, bureaucrats and gangsters who hold center stage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 15, 2003
When three women are company, not a crowd
After a one-month break, I got back to my old haunts last weekend and was delighted to encounter -- by pure chance -- two "three-women" plays on Tokyo stages.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 10, 2003
Revenge to truly savor
Yukio Ninagawa's "Electra" has been long-awaited by many people for quite different reasons -- as was clear from the diversity of its opening-night audience last Saturday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 20, 2003
Noda gives Kabukiza a 'Mouse' that roars
A modern legend is back at the 114-year-old Kabukiza this summer in the diminutive form of Hideki Noda, one of the titans of Japanese contemporary theater.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 13, 2003
Hotshot terrorist comedy just misses target
Though only in his early 30s, Martin McDonagh already has a 1998 Tony Award under his belt for his worldwide hit, "The Beauty Queen of Leenane." What's more, his works have been staged in 38 countries -- Japan among them.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2003
O, what a tangled web we weave
Though nowhere near as all-encompassing as the Renaissance in Europe, the closed, feudal world of shogunal Japan did throw up a few periods of vigorous artistic expression in the more than two and a half control-freak centuries it lasted. One of these was about 200 years ago, from 1804-1830, during what...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 16, 2003
It's an absurd, absurd world
Theatrical experiences don't get much more intimate than at the Umegaoka Box in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. The room-size home of the Rinko Gun theater company is barely four meters from front to back (including the floor-level acting area) and 15 meters across, meaning there's no place for either the 40...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 2, 2003
Two European time-and-emotion studies
It's my pleasure to introduce two plays you really must see this month, if not today. Well, one today, and one tomorrow, perhaps, so as not to be too greedy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2003
An all-star cast -- but if only they'd let 'Hamlet' be
As the Beckham typhoon swept through Japan last week, so Japan's theater world was taken by storm by its biggest event of the year to date.
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 11, 2003
Kumakawa spreads his wings with 'Swan Lake'
When Tetsuya Kumakawa left The Royal Ballet five years ago at the age of 26, most people said it was too early for the Ferrari-driving superstar to leave his position as a principal dancer with the legendary company he joined in 1989. That was probably because most people didn't know what Kumakawa himself...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 28, 2003
Enjoy your complicite in a world of dizzying multiplicity
It was a difficult delivery. The fruit of the union between actor/director Simon McBurney, founder of London-based Complicite (formerly Thea^tre de Complicite), and a Japanese cast in Tokyo had been long-awaited, but even so it kept everyone guessing past the expected arrival time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 14, 2003
Bulletins from life in a box
Once, people had more time to think about the meaning of life -- or its meaninglessness. Poor students brooded over their ambitions in 4 1/2-tatami rooms, undistracted by computers and 3G keitai. People dreamed of a peaceful future while huddling sheltered during the war. Long, long ago, some may have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 7, 2003
Come on, come on, let's get together
There's collaboration in the air in Japan's contemporary theater world; collaboration between foreign directors and Japanese actors, directors and producers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 23, 2003
Looking history straight in the face
"I want to live, I do not want to perish gracefully in battle," declares Yamato (Tatsuya Fujiwara), the young hero of Hideki Noda's "Oil."
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

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