Two eagerly anticipated German-directed productions of Shakespeare arrived in Tokyo last week, each the product of its director's extensive experience and deep deliberation on the play's contemporary relevance, and each given a polished reinterpretation as a result.
While German drama was among the most influential of the 20th century, thanks in no small part to the towering figure of Bertolt Brecht, it has not been presented so often in Japan. To experience these two productions is to ask why.
The first to open, on Sept. 7, was "Hamlet" at the New National Theatre in Shinjuku, with Peter Stein directing. Born in 1937, Stein built his reputation with contemporary European drama during the 1970s and '80 as the artistic director of the Schaubuhne Theater in West Berlin. He resigned from the Schaubuhne in the mid'-80s, but continued working as a guest director while also turning his attention to opera and collaborations with Russian dramatists.