Playwright Muneko Nemoto's guide to the history of theater in the 2000s

Guide: Muneko Nemoto

Muneko Nemoto says that since seeing the play "Ningen Gohansan" (Otona Keikaku [A]) in 2003, she was deeply moved, and has been attending various theaters at a rate of 120 shows a year. She looks back on the theater scene that she witnessed and experienced firsthand as a theater fan at the time.

Small theaters are competing with each other. Plays with everyday conversations, which have taken over from "quiet theater," are flourishing. Artistic "theater" has broadened the scope of the scene.

One of the defining theatrical genres of the 2000s was dialogue plays using modern colloquial language. There was a surge in popularity of plays that pursued a realism that was an extension of everyday life, like eavesdropping on a casual conversation at a family restaurant.

Representative examples would be Daisuke Miura's Potsdol and Masaaki Akahori's playwright and director THE SHAMPOO HAT. Going back in time, I think the starting point of this was the "Quiet Theatre [B]" that Oriza Hirata 's Seinendan theatre company has been working on since the 1990s.

Of course, I was only born in the 1990s, so I don't have any firsthand experience of the 1990s. However, as time has passed, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel like there's a boom in dialogue theater again. It's fascinating that, like Y2K, the style from around the year 2000 is gaining attention in the theater scene.

On the other hand, for example, Asagaya Spiders, run by Nagatsuka Keishi, used to do a lot of B-grade horror plays, and plays with erotic and grotesque elements were popular, but I think that is one of the characteristics of this generation in the sense that we don't see that much these days.

Also, at the time, there was a social boom, with the activities of small theater companies being featured on television, and I remember that tickets to popular theater companies were becoming increasingly difficult to get.

These include Modern Swimmers, written and directed by Ryuta Horai, and Fur Tribe, written and directed by Junko Emoto, who is also an actor. Speaking of plays at large theaters, the Gekidan Shinkansen, which includes Arata Furuta, has expanded to the Shinbashi Enbujo Theater, and I remember lining up at Pia for tickets because the excitement was so great.

I've been talking about theater companies, but there were also changes in the way performances were presented. One of the characteristics of this period was the increase in produced performances, rather than the so-called theater company performances [C]. A producer would plan a play, and each time a writer, director, and actors would be gathered to perform it.

For example, from around this time onwards, there was an increasing trend for companies to call themselves "theater companies," such as "Yukiko Motoya Theater Company," but not to have any actors on their roster, and instead to assemble performers for each performance.

And when talking about theater in the 2000s, one person who is indispensable is Kankuro Kudo. He wrote many scripts not only for theater but also for television dramas and movies, and it seems that his name was always on any popular work.

There are many titles that everyone of my generation knows, such as dramas like "Ikebukuro West Gate Park" and "Kisarazu Cat's Eye," and movies like "GO" and "Ping Pong," and I think that's really amazing. There must be many people who first came into contact with theater through these names. At a time when the Internet was becoming more widespread and young people had more things to enjoy, I once again realize that he was the one who turned their eyes to theater.

As we entered the latter half of the 2000s, I feel like the variety of theater performances continued to increase. It felt like the scope of theater was expanding, with performances on stage in costumes designed by fashion designers, and performances with no dialogue but pure dance. To put it simply, things like "Let's do a play in an art museum" became acceptable within the framework of "theater." This is my honest impression: this was a time when changes began to occur in the way theater was perceived and perceived.

Japanese theater is always full of different trends, which is very interesting. I dream that if theater-going becomes a part of everyday life for people of all ages, like in London or New York, Japanese theater will become even more popular.