Assimilation of Asia: On Okawa’s Revenge and Nayotake

Abstract

This paper examines Okawa’s Revenge (1941), written by Kaoru Morimoto, and Nayotake (1944), written by Michio Kato, as significant cases of the “adaption of tradition into modern theatre” in Japan during World War II, and elucidates the role of “Asia” in dramaturgy in Japan during the same period. The direction of the relationship between Japan and Asia in the former drama is opposite to that in the latter drama. A Ryukyu dance suite was translated into Okawa’s Revenge as a modern drama. Similarly, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which is said to be an oldest tale in Japan, was translated into Nayotake as a modern drama. And also, the heroine, Nayotake, does not argue equally with a man, but she realizes that she is incompetent in the face of the transcendental power beyond her, and she follows the transcendental power without fighting against it. The idea of Nayotake is positively understanding the “weakness” of herself. It differs from that of a strong woman described by Morimoto in Okawa’s Revenge, a woman who logically confronts a man.

Both Morimoto and Kato were influenced by the works of Shinobu Orikuchi, a famous folklorist. In the 1930s, Orikuchi attached a great importance to the maintenance and renovation of Ryukyu culture, so he was positively involved in the realization of the performance of full-scale Ryukyu dances in Japan for the first time. Orikuchihad laid the foundation for the wide acceptance of Ryukyu traditional performing arts, and Morimoto’s works were born under these circumstances. In the case of Kato, the spirit of Orikuchi – The Book of the Dead in particular – affected his views about life and death. In Kato’s Nayotake, there is a section that is deeply connected to Orikuchi’s recognition of Japan’s cultural old layer.

The two dramas discussed in this paper are examples of tradition being translated into modern theatre. These dramas sufficiently exhibit the general perspective towards Asia at that time. These dramas also contain many contrasting elements which were carried over to the “adaption of tradition into modern theatre”, which has been practised in various forms since the 1950s, after World War II. Subsequently, fertile avant-garde dramas called underground dramas have flourished since the 1960s.