🎭Men’s evil manners live in brass. Their virtues
We write in water.
—Griffith, Henry VIII, 4-2
He was talking to the Princess Dowager Katherine of her son Cardinal Wolsey, how he died. Griffith says people never forget the bad parts of a character, but the good part we forget after write it in tears at the funeral.
Actually, Shakespeare makes Mark Antony speak the exact opposite in Julius Caesar. Interesting.
#shakespeare
#shakespearequotes
#henryviii
Lady Gregory.
Have you ever heard of?
If you are an Irish Theatrist, or a Korean theatrist, you may know about her.
She is a playwright, producer, and a patron, at the dawn of Irish theatre.
She supported various Irish playwrights to make them go famous.
She built the first National Theatre in Dublin, for Irish people, when Ireland was still under British Empire’s control.
She herself wrote many plays to attract the Irish common audience, when theatre was an aristocratic pleasure.
She has been rather long forgotten or hidden behind big Irish names such as WB Yeats, but nowadays, possibly because of BREXIT and recent gender-equal movements, more light is put on her.
I am directing (rehearsing) some her best short plays in Japan.
The Workhouse Ward, and The Rising of The Moon.
The actors are great and understand the background situation of Ireland and Britain at the turn of the 20th century.
If you are interested in watching the streaming (in Japanese), contact me.
Do you know Jean Giraudoux, a French playwright of early 20th Century?
I will be in one of his plays called La Guerre de Troie N’aura Pas Lieu: The Trojan War will Never Take Place. The play is known and made into many stage productions in English as Tiger At The Gates, translated by Stephen Fry.
It is about the very day when the war is outbroken.
As Troy has just won a big war in Asian continent, Hector the General really wanted to rest, and came back only to find that his younger brother Paris has abducted the most beautiful Helen of Sparta into Troy, and the whole Greek army is on the way to win her back.
I am going to play Hecube (Hecabe in English), a 50 years old queen and mother of 19 children from Priam the King.
Giraudoux wrote female gathering scenes in which Hecabe was as a warm yet hilarious vigorous one, I think. She does her best to avoid another war, by wit and humour, while all “male characters who have never been at war because of their physical frailty” are eager to go into another war only because they don’t want Helen to leave.
The director and producer of the production has his theatre company, and is quite experimental and wants this one as a physical and musical performance with mixed genres. Thus among the cast, there are a Kyogen (traditional Japanese) performer, a mask performer from Jacques Lecoq, a film director, a ballet dancer, etc. There are also several young novice or student actors in the theatre company members.
The rehearsal is more like nonstop exercise-workshop, and quite in confusion. But we believe this will make some special one, for the positive energy we put in is enormous!
I will put more photos from the rehearsal. Wait for it!
It is Summer Solstice.
Do you celebrate, and how?
Japanese June is quite rainy, very different from Europe and USA.
Not much sun, yet very very humid.
Which prevents us from celebrate the day as a festival.
However, at Ise ([ise]), Wakayama prefecture, where AmaTeras [amateras] the Goddess of the Sun is worshiped, holds an important festival on the sea, and make a prayer to the rising sun.
↑ https://futamiokitamajinja.or.jp/event/guideline_geshisai/
I wish you spend a very happy midsummer, with your favorite fairies.
Don’t you find it hard to find information in English, on what to watch in theatre, except traditional performing arts such as Kabuki and Noh?
I do.
And I have been wondering if I could be of a little help in that area through my English blog.
Well, there are many things going on, in variety of styles and forms, in Japan.
Some may love ANIME, some traditional Japanese, some 2.5 dimension, musicals, operas, ballets. and straight plays.
I cannot cover all nor you’d not want to read in one page.
So, I will pick up something different, something you could only experience in Tokyo.
My country gradually opens and starts welcoming people from outside Japan.
Come enjoy my beautiful land and heart-warming culture.
Don’t miss my next blog/email!
I will also keep giving ideas on Zen Acting, the mind of Zen to be used in acting. Zen is the way of life; just like Yoga as the way of life; and indeed they are quite close to each other.
Laugh, Love, Live!
ELICA MIWA
Hi from Elica!
How are you doing in this world filled with so many problems?
First, take a soothing breath in by enjoying my little rose garden.
Now I have a question for you.
What is acting?
Many times I noticed that good directors tend to say “Stop acting!” or “Don’t act!”
What does this mean?
In Japanese language, “acting” has the same interpretation of faking things, faking their behaviour, or faking the feeling.
Isn’t it interesting?
Both in English and in Japanese, “acting” has the meaning of faking attitude.
But we actors, directors, and the theatrists hate to fake!
It’s OK to use the word “acting”, but sometimes we feel the need to add an explanation that it doesn’t mean faking.
I would say that we are character players, in plays, musicals, dance performances, ballet, opera, and movies: anything where there is a story and characters.
[Today’s ZEN for performing artists]
Acting is not faking.
Acting is living the character.
Before anything, I must express my heart filled with sorrow for the people in Ukraine.I am against any form of violence.
Though I know violence is quite a main and entertaining part of performing arts, the reason I am in the perfroming art is to make the world peaceful.
By saying that, today, I am going to show you peaceful scenes of spring near Tokyo.
The beginning of the spring of Japan is symbolized by plum blossoms.
Elica has been busy visiting many plum orchards and gardens.
Here are some videos of plum orchards.
Odawara: Very early.
Ogose: Middle Season
Fuchu: In Full Bloom
Feel the IKI (breathing) of old trees awakening.
Travel Japan with ELICA MIWA.
This is a very rare place.
Not many people, even a Japanese, actually visit, for the place is located really deep in the mountains in deep Nara. It is TenKawa Dai BenZaiTen Shrine.
This shrine is the head of all shrines for performing arts!
(BenZaiTen is the name of the god of performing arts.)
The music behind the video is also made by me ELICA.
Only, there was a road construction and you may hear low buzzing noise sometime.
Still, you can dip yourself into the summer sound of high mountain in Japan.
ENJOY!
!ZEN ACTING !
Listen to the sound in you.
Before I deliver this blog, I must share my deep sorrow and prayer for UKRAINE who suffer without a reason. I cannot pretend as if nothing is happening and write my usual blog. But at the same time, one may need to stay calm and bless the world.
Though the wind and politics are savage, the spring is coming here in Japan. The early rise of spring is traditionally symbolized by plum blossoms. I went to Odawara, two hour drive from central Tokyo, to see the plum orchard.
Here is the video. I hope this gives you some relaxing moment.
The season has just started, which means not many flowers on trees.
! ZEN ACTING !
Breathe in the fresh air, to refresh your mind.
Hello from ELICA MIWA.
I have just made a video clip of a beautiful sunset scene in Japan.
Filmed at the ancient part of Nara.
It is very soothing.
I hope you enjoy watching it, probably before going to sleep.
For actors, suitable for after acting on stage, too, to bring your soul back to normal daily life and yourself.
