Health, Wealth and Stealth: Exploring the Intercultural Body through Kyogen and Commedia dell'ArteJapanese kyôgen and Italian commedia dell'arte are traditional theatre genres that depend primarily upon the actors' bodies and gestures to create comedic, often topical performances. The intercultural connections between these genres have been explored both theoretically and practically, most recently by Professor Sekine Masaru of Tokyo, who has been working intensively with Italian and Japanese actors. During spring, 2008 I will be in Kyoto to collaborate with professional kyôgen actors and American theatre director/Japanese academic Professor Jonah Salz, who together have also worked on performances combining commedia dell'arte techniques with kyôgen. We will create contemporary, cross-cultural adaptations of Moliere plays (one, a conflation of The Imaginary Invalid and A Doctor In Spite of Himself, the other adapted from The Miser) that will become part of a bi-lingual trilogy that includes my previously produced and published kyôgen-commedia dell'arte fusion The Impostor, based on Tartuffe. The trilogy, entitled Health, Wealth and Stealth, deals with religious hypocrisy and fanaticism, health care, consumerism, greed, and Japanese- American cultural misunderstandings. It is hoped that the plays will tour Japan and the USA. The paper will preview some of the theoretical and practical work upon which this creative research project will be based. |
Fisher Sorgenfrei, Carol |