48 Facts About Kunio Kishida

Kunio Kishida was a Japanese playwright, dramatist, novelist, lecturer, acting coach, theatre critic, translator, and proponent of Shingeki.

Kunio Kishida was a staunch advocate for the theatre to operate as a dual artistic and literary space.

At the beginning of the Meiji era, efforts to modernize the Japanese theatre became a critical topic for Japanese playwrights, and these endeavors persisted well into the 1920s before Kunio Kishida wrote his first plays.

However, his predecessors' attempts did not come to fruition, and Kunio Kishida is recognized as the first playwright to successfully reform the narrative, thematic, and performative trajectories of Japanese playwriting and acting through Shingeki.

Kunio Kishida was known for his vehement opposition to traditional Japanese kabuki, noh, and shimpa theatre.

Kunio Kishida argued for the essentiality of the theatre as a serious performative and literary mode of creative expression.

Kunio Kishida was born on November 2,1890, in Yotsuya, Tokyo, to a military family with historic samurai roots in Kishu.

Kunio Kishida's father, Shozo, was a military officer in the Imperial Army, and Kishida was expected to follow the family lifestyle.

Kunio Kishida left the military in 1914 after he expressed dissatisfaction with this career path.

In 1919, Kunio Kishida traveled to France to expose himself to the European theatre and expand his literary interests.

Shortly thereafter, Kunio Kishida studied theatre at the Theatre du Vieux-Colombier, which marked the beginning of his lifelong admiration for French drama.

Under the tutelage of the director Jacques Copeau, Kunio Kishida learned about the history and customs of French and European theatre.

Subsequently, Kunio Kishida recognized that this unique approach to acting was absent in his country's theatrical traditions of kabuki, noh, and shimpa.

Kunio Kishida was inspired to create an original play after he overheard one of his favorite actors, the Russian Georges Pitoeff, express an interest to perform in a Japanese play.

Kunio Kishida already had multiple copies of contemporary Japanese plays to share with him but decided against it and composed his own work.

In October 1922, Kunio Kishida took a leave of absence and temporarily resided in Southern France to recover from a severe lung hemorrhage.

Kunio Kishida quickly returned to Japan in 1923 after he learned about his father's death and went to care for his mother and sisters.

Kunio Kishida followed the latest trends in Japanese theatre and became fascinated with the works of the contemporary dramatist Yuzo Yamamoto.

Kunio Kishida was initially concerned that Yamamoto's passion for German literature would negatively affect his perception of A Wan Smile's French undertones.

Yamamoto assisted Kunio Kishida in launching his playwriting career when he created the theatre magazine Engeki Shincho.

Kunio Kishida was asked to submit a review of the Tsukiji's opening night plays.

Kunio Kishida went with an open mind to assess how these plays reflected current trends in Japanese drama, especially as he became aware of the theatre director Kaoru Osanai's progressive and controversial decision to only stage Western plays.

Kunio Kishida hoped to establish a partnership with Osanai in which he could utilize his firsthand knowledge and exposure to European theatre to assist in the production of the Tsukiji's plays.

Kunio Kishida rebuked the performances as weak and chastised the theatre for investing too much money into the stage designs instead of formal training for the actors.

The failure of the Tsukiji's opening night performances to move Kunio Kishida demonstrated his much broader dissatisfaction with the state of Japanese theatre.

Kunio Kishida felt that traditional performances of kabuki and noh were dated and that Japanese attempts at Western drama were mere imitations.

Armed with a wealth of knowledge, experience, and creative inspiration accrued during his European residency, Kunio Kishida deemed it imperative for Japanese theatre to pursue more serious, psychological narratives and to strengthen performers' acting abilities.

Primarily one-act stories, Kunio Kishida's first plays featured small groupings of characters set within private, domestic settings.

Kunio Kishida deliberately eschewed any social, political, and historical thematic overtones; this became a distinct attribute associated with Kishida's playwriting.

Kunio Kishida attempted to remedy this issue through regular screenings of foreign film adaptations of Western plays; these supplemental resources were insufficient to properly educate students on modern acting and playwriting.

Kunio Kishida joined the Institute in 1927 while enrolled in Keio University and was lauded for his mastery of French literature, especially his comprehensive study of French dramaturgy and dialogue.

The theatre disbanded in 1936, but Kunio Kishida immediately transitioned into a more popular venue, the Bungakuza.

In 1937, Kunio Kishida co-founded The Literary Theatre with Iwata Toyoo and Michio Kato as a venue to stage Western plays.

Kunio Kishida's expertise in French drama was a major determinant in the theatre's selection of celebrated playwrights: Roger Martin du Gard, Jules Romains, Jean-Victor Pellerin, Simon Gantillon, and Marcel Pagnol.

Kunio Kishida was sent to the southern front of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in China in order to chronicle the conflict.

Since Kunio Kishida's plays intentionally lacked political messages, he was one of only a few playwrights whose work was not censored by the right-wing government.

Kunio Kishida's ostracization was further intensified by his membership in the ultra-right Imperial Rule Assistance Association.

For Kunio Kishida, this meant he had to maintain the status quo through the continued staging of politically neutral plays that did not criticize the government nor espouse progressive ideas.

Kunio Kishida openly disliked kabuki's melodrama and emphasis on heightened emotions rather than subtlety and naturalism.

Kunio Kishida considered noh as far too dissimilar from modern Japanese drama to the point where it was its own separate entity that would not interfere with the redesign of Japanese theatre.

Kunio Kishida once wrote about a kabuki performance he saw upon his return to Japan in 1923.

In 1927, Kunio Kishida married Murakawa Tokiko, and they had two daughters.

Kunio Kishida died of a stroke in Tokyo during a dress rehearsal for a theatrical production with which he was associated on March 5,1954.

Between drama and comedic satire, Kunio Kishida wrote over 60 plays.

Kunio Kishida was distinguished from his contemporaries for his lack of socio-political themes, primarily because his works were written and performed during times of internal political upheaval and international turmoil.

Kunio Kishida's modernization of the Japanese theatre was a slow and arduous process that did not fully flower until after his 1954 death.

Copeau's directorial style and the influential Drama Purification Movement compelled Kunio Kishida to introduce natural and rhythmic dialogue to Japanese performers.

Kunio Kishida died of a stroke in Tokyo during a dress rehearsal for a theatrical production with which he was associated on March 5,1954.