Terayama Shûji
Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s
reviewed four decades later
Wolfgang Zoubek

富山大学人文学部紀要第 68 号抜刷
２０１８年２月

Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later

Terayama Shûji
Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s
reviewed four decades later
Wolfgang Zoubek
Introduction
Terayama Shûji (1935-1983) was one of the leading artists of a new avant-garde
Japanese theater movement in the 1970s. He was an extraordinarily versatile
person, writing poetry and plays, directing theater and film productions, andenthusiastically participating in sports. Horse racing and boxing held a particularfascination for him, which is one reason why boxing rings sometimes appeared asa scenic motif in his theatrical productions.
Terayama first gained public notice in 1954 for his poetry (Sorgenfrei 1978, 92).
He was therefore known in Japan as a young literary figure. However, when hestarted his theater group, Tenjô Sajiki, his reputation as a theater director was not
as acclaimed. Terayama did not mind working with laymen, for which he wasoften criticized. From early on in his career he was accused of scandal-making
and sensationalism, and his performances were often called vulgar. Therefore,
Terayama and his group members were regarded as outsiders and representativesof a subculture (Senda 1995, 141). Nevertheless, they were the first Japanese
avant-garde theater group invited abroad, to countries such as France, Holland, theU.S.A. and Germany.
In this article, Terayama’s theatrical ambitions will be examined from theperspectives of his performances in Japan and via the reviews he received from－ 281 －

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abroad. In Japan he is still appreciated despite his untimely death in 1983, butabroad his plays and films have been mostly forgotten.
Since the 1970s, Terayama was highly esteemed as a playwright and director,
and his theater work gained interest because he was an innovative dramatist andthespian. His street theater experiments are especially worthy of remembrance.
Terayama tried to break the traditional theatrical framework because he wanted
to blur the border between stage and auditorium in order to connect theater witheveryday life. Terayama’s purpose was to overcome the passivity of the average
audience. Therefore, he often tried to motivate spectators to participate in his
performances. However, when his group members overstretched their antiestablishment behavior, they switched over to an authoritarian attitude toward theiraudiences, especially in cases when spectators were forced to do things against
their will. Nevertheless, despite some crucial blunders, many of Terayama’s ideas
are worth saving from oblivion, and other episodes from his theater life can beseen as anecdotes from past times.
Terayama often claimed that the contents of his plays were not important, andthe audience should instead only pay attention to the form of the presentation.
However, statements like this could also be interpreted as camouflage. The topic
of a lot of his plays was a problematic mother-child relationship, a hidden attempt
to handle his own past. He was raised in war-time Japan and suffered for his
entire life from mental wounds, unfulfilled hopes, and broken dreams. Typicallyfor his generation, as a young man he turned his aggression against society, but
this behavior simply covered the incurable psychic trauma of his boyhood, like ashield.

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Early career
Terayama was born in Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region1）, in Aomori prefecture.
Even as a renowned author in Tokyo, he never denied his roots or lost his local
dialect. His personality was open and winning. He succeeded in recruiting a great
deal of creative people into his orbit. There were also some scandals surroundinghim2）, but these resulted in a lot of legends about him as well. In 1997, a Terayama
museum was built in a pop-art style near his birthplace.
Terayama established his theater group in the late sixties, but he was not taken
seriously as a theatrical practitioner until the seventies. Nevertheless, his firsttheatrical experience as a playwright dates back to 1957 when he completed
his first play. The title was Chi wa Tatta Mama Nemutte Iru (Blood is Standing
Asleep), and it was performed by a theater group at that time (Sorgenfrei 1978,92). A later play was Wa ga Hanzaigaku - Adam and Eve (Our School of Crime- Adam and Eve), which was performed in 1966 in Tokyo at the Art Theater
Shinjuku Bunka.
Until the early sixties in Japan, the so called Shingeki (New Theater) style was invogue, but despite the name, this kind of theater was basically just a plain copyof western literary theater. Its roots went back to the beginnings of the twentiethcentury, when almost all translations of foreign works were presented as ‘newtheater’ in Japan, with only a few exceptions of original Japanese plays.
Since the middle of the 1960s, an underground theater movement started in

1） Terayama`s ‘Tohoku provincialism’ was mocked, with nasty allusions made regarding his origins(Kara 1997, 30).
2） In December 1969, there was a brawl between members of Tenjô Sajiki and another troop leading to
Terayama and his adversary being arrested (Goodman 1988, S. 234).

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opposition to the Shingeki style. Terayama was one of the theater practitioners
at the forefront of this movement, noted for its inclusion of traditional Japaneseelements. His theater group, Engeki Jikkenshitsu Tenjô Sajiki, was established in1967 (Senda 1995, 136). It was particularly unusual in that Terayama came into
theater as an author, yet specifically rejected the ‘literary theater’ style due to its
perceived inauthenticity (Terayama 1983, 158).
The name of Terayama’s theater group referred to the film Les Enfants du Paradisby Marcel Carné (Goodman 1999, 47). Tenjô Sajiki means ‘the gallery at the very
top’. Engeki Jikkenshitsu means ‘theater laboratory’. It was therefore intended as
experimental theater which took surrealism as its model (Goodman 1999, 47). In
English, the group’s name is referred to as ‘The Peanut Gallery’. In this group,
Terayama gathered people who only had the chance to appear in the circus orvariety shows. His motto was ‘the rehabilitation of showman-hood’. Tenjô Sajiki
therefore stood at a distance from other theater groups for the whole period of
its existence (Senda 1995, 138). Most of its members lacked theater training andwere not connected to the Shingeki style or university student theater groups.
Terayama’s criticism of conventional western theater lies in the fact that it was
too often used as propaganda. In every epoch, theater has fallen into the handsof people who try to use it to manipulate reality. Terayama also criticized how
theater always has to define itself through the existence of a stage—if the actors
and audience are not allotted places above and below, theater somehow loses its
authenticity. As in the visual arts of the twentieth century, objects were therefore
simply seen as ‘art’ because they were put in museums; otherwise, people would
carelessly pass by them (Terayama 1971, 29). In other words, Terayama felt thatwhile framework defines content, content does not have anything that defines－ 284 －

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itself. As a result, he believed theater should be given back to itself.
To overcome Western theatrical conventions, in Terayama’s view, theater’s
fictitious nature needed to be emphasized. Just as a spectator observes sideshowsor waxworks and knows they are not real, so theater should not be allowed tocopy reality. According to Terayama, sideshows with deformed creatures wereoriginally a means of moral education. Parents could say to their children, “Look,so that your sins will be repaid” (Terayama 1971, 20). In Japan, it could be argued
that immoral actions in one’s former life might be punished through deformities
upon rebirth. Therefore, those with handicaps or other abnormalities were shownas deterrents. However, these performances fascinated Terayama as a child for thesake of curiosity: he did not feel the need for them to be morally justified. For thisreason, Terayama wanted to present spectacles like a showman with Tenjô Sajiki.
He was not looking for a ‘noble’ public that wanted to see ‘art’ in a theater.
Early Tenjo Sajiki productions
Aomori-ken no Semushi Otoko
The first production of Tenjô Sajiki was a play called Aomori-ken no Semushi
Otoko (The Hunchback of Aomori). For his casting call, Terayama posted anewspaper advertisement in which he was looking for “giants, dwarfs, deformed
creatures, and beautiful women”. At the audition, he cared less about acting
abilities and more about actors with the requisite physical showiness for his
production. He wanted to create a circus-like performance, so he was not looking
simply for “actors and actresses” (Senda 1995, 138). He felt an inner connection
to outsiders because he saw himself “as an outsider, cut off from the mainstreamof society by the fact of his unrecorded birth, his roots in the frontier of the almost－ 285 －

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primitive Tohoku region, and his conviction that his mind was somehow different
due to the separation” (Sorgenfrei 1978, 92).
Shortly after Terayama’s death in 1983, a retrospective of his most importantworks was organized. A videotape of an Aomori-Ken no Semushi Otoko performance
was made available on this occasion. In the show, strange figures appeared onstage, but not one of the actors had a real affliction. The title figure was not at
all the main character. The actual leading role was a woman played by a male
actor whose theatrical acting style alluded to the appearance of women in kabuki
theater. This woman felt sexually attracted to the hunchback, but a sense ofmaternal concern for him also mingled into their relationship. The possibility
that the hunchback could actually be her son also came up, as it was mentionedthat she was raped as a maid by the son of her master and then bore a disfigured
child.3）Although the child’s father had died, the maid was taken into a rich family,
and her son was abandoned. The family let the official birth and death registers
vanish in order to destroy all proof. As a result, when the hunchback appeared
as an adult, there remained a doubt as to whether he was her son or not. Theirstrange relationship became especially clear in a bath scene in which she roughly
tore off his clothes in order to wash his back with fervor. A mutual sexual desire
also mingled into the longing of the hunchback for a mother. The woman was also
physically misshapen - she walked with a limp even though she tried to conceal
it. Now she was the mistress of the house, but she was surrounded like a moody
queen with strange servants: a dwarf, a giant, and a naked girl.

3）Terayama possibly wanted to associate the mother’s pregnancy after the rape with her child’s hunchedback. The mother and son would therefore have to carry the disfigurement together (Sorgenfrei 2000,
276).

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Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades laterTo the side of the stage knelt a kabuki-like narrator that provided commentary
to the sounds of a shamisen. According to Sorgenfrei (1978, 124), through thisapproach Terayama was drawing on the tradition of Naniwabushi, a musicalrecitation of old tales, which became tremendously popular in the Meiji era(1868-1912). Musical recitation has a very long tradition in Japan in the formof shinnai, solo recitation, as well as jôruri, in combination with doll theater. In
Terayama’s play, the narrator was a young woman wearing a sailor-style dress,
like a schoolgirl. Unlike in kabuki, however, this narrator also performed a rolein the play, and the truth of her remarks was questioned during the performance.
Specifically, the alleged mother of the hunchback disagreed with parts of thenarrator’s telling of her story and felt jealousy toward her because the narrator
also showed interest in the hunchback and seemed not to speak from an objective
point of view. In the play, the narrator is eventually murdered by the dwarf servant
when she is about to divulge critical secrets.
In addition to shamisen music, archaic sounds of gongs, drums, and horns wereplayed in a very uncanny manner. There was also a kind of chorus consisting ofwhispering voices without bodies that emphasized fear and superstition (Sorgenfrei
1978, 134). The atmosphere of the region in which Terayama was born came alivein the play, as well as the supernatural atmosphere of Osore-zan, the mountainin Aomori where it is believed that the immediate presence of spirits can be felt
living alongside people.
Finally, another characteristic of this production was the unique stage set-up. On
the stage was a platform where only those who entered it were considered to bepart of a scene. Whoever stood outside it was not part of the ongoing story. In
other words, with this arrangement, actors were simultaneously on stage and off－ 287 －

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stage.
From the point of view of the 1983 retrospective, it is impossible to adequately
judge the first production of Aomori-Ken no Semushi Otoko. By the time the video
was taken, the scenery had changed quite a bit from the original premiere, which
was fifteen years earlier. As can be seen from old photos, the stage at the premiere
contained a beach and a Japanese war flag in the background that symbolized therising sun over the sea (Corona 1997, 25). Directed by Higashi Yutaka, the scenery
utilized the graphic artwork of Yokô Tadanori, a Tenjô Sajiki co-founder, as well
as design elements referring to pop art and folk art (Sorgenfrei 1978, 123).
Sorgenfrei (1992 S. 120) interpreted Aomori-Ken no Semushi Otoko as a kindof Japanese version of the Oedipus myth despite the fact that a father figure wasabsent in the play.4）The mother of the hunchback could be seen as a symbol of
old Japan and how it was ‘raped’ at end of the nineteenth century by powerfulwestern states but later taken into the family of rich industrial nations (Sorgenfrei
1992, 121). The hunchback could also be a metaphor for the atomic bomb victimsof World War II. On one hand, he was separated like the survivors, marked as aconsequence of a forceful event. On the other hand, also like the hibakusha, thehunchback was the object of lecherous interest (Sorgenfrei 1992, 121).
Ôyama Debuko no Hanzai
Terayama’s next play, Ôyama Debuko no Hanzai (Fat Ôyama’s Crime) brought a
grotesque banquet to the stage. The crime of Fat Ôyama was that she ate for two

4） Terayama, on the other hand, claimed that his generation suffered from an Orestes complex (Senda
1983, 13).

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while others had to starve elsewhere (Terayama 1971, 10). In addition to an obese
woman, Terayama also cast sex actor starlets and bodybuilders for the production(Senda 1995, 139). The set design resembled Aomori-Ken no Semushi Otoko, andthe narrator-driven musical recitation style also accompanied stage events in thisplay.
According to Terayama, the script of this play was not important. The main aim
was to afford the opportunity to place attractive bodies beside a hundred-kilowoman on the stage (Senda 1995, 139). However, Terayama’s protest against
literary theater could also be seen in this production. Hiragana characters from theJapanese syllable poem i-ro-ha were used in a card game scene, one by one. Lateron, a new sequence of these characters was recited in the form of a poem (Terayama
1983, 269). This kind of broken use of literary meaning was reminiscent of dada
experiments.
Kegawa no Marie
The third production of Tenjô Sajiki was Kegawa no Marie (Mink Marie).
Terayama did not use the musical recitative approach in this play; Nevertheless,the influence of Aomori-Ken no Semushi Otoko was evident. A transvestite actor
played the lead role of Marie. She first appeared as a woman who changed herlovers like shirts and kept a kind of slave who had to shave her arms and legs inthe bathtub and perform other lowly services. However, later in the play it wasestablished that Marie was a man, not a woman. The Japanese title Kegawa no
Marie therefore is a reference to male body hair.5）
5）This appears to be an anticipation of modern gender ideology. However, in the late sixties, it
was probably only used as a provocative aspect of transvestitism and homosexuality to attack theconservative male and female gender concepts of that time.

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Marie pretended to have a son named Kinya, a teenage boy who appeared in shortpants but whose biological mother had been raped and then died during childbirth.
Marie did not want to let him grow up, so she had him live in an artificial world6）,
in an apartment decorated like a jungle in which Kinya would go on butterfly
hunts. Marie was neither Kinya’s mother nor father, but she felt responsible forcausing his biological mother to be raped (Sorgenfrei 1978, 168). In one scene
Marie explained the reason for choosing the life of a woman and occasionallythe male actor stepped out of the female part by speaking some lines with a deep
voice. Another female character, also played by a transvestite, tried to seduce
Kinya, but Kinya was so strongly under Marie’s influence that he would rather
murder the girl to escape sexual persecution. As a result, Marie dressed him
henceforth as a female and taught him how to be a transvestite.
Sorgenfrei (1978, 168) describes another version of Kegawa no Marie in which
the girl strangled Kinya, but he was brought back to life by Marie in the end.
Here Marie appeared as a Christ-like figure in a circle of twelve gay apostles.
There were also other allusions to Marie’s divine nature in this version of the play.
For example, during the girl’s first seduction attempt, Kinya called out for his
mother’s help, and Marie’s voice answered in a God-like manner from behind thecurtain (Sorgenfrei 1978, 181).
In a flier for a guest performance in Essen, Germany in 1969, the play wascalled a Lehrstück because it showed a “metamorphosis, a transformation of thenatural into the artificial”. In actuality, while Terayama never intended to write a6） This artificial world, similar to Disneyland, resembled in certain respects the world in which many
Japanese children are raised because their mothers themselves do not want to get older.

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Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later

Brechtian Lehrstück7）, his story depicted a metamorphosis of ‘the real’ into ‘thewrong’, a transformation of truth into lies symbolized by the reversal of sexual
orientation but also by alluding to the association of a cocoon/caterpillar/butterfly.
Becoming a butterfly was equivalent to escaping from reality (Sorgenfrei 1978,
168) because in the parlance of the play, truth was imagination while reality was alie (Sorgenfrei 1978, 177).
Sorgenfrei also interpreted the play as a blasphemous parody of Christianity. The‘artificial jungle’ could be a reference to the Garden of Eden (Sorgenfrei 2000,280), and the girl could be seen as the serpent in paradise (Sorgenfrei 1978, 179).
Marie therefore appeared in the first part as a disguised God/Father figure, andin the second act as a God-like Son with allusions to the Last Supper (Sorgenfrei
1978, 183). “The music of Bach and Wagner spews forth as Christ’s descent into
hell and resurrection are parodied by a dancing chorus of Mink Maries” (Sorgenfrei
2000, 280).
Sorgenfrei (1992 122) noted the similarity of Kegawa no Marie to a nô play, as
the first act depicted a disguised god who was then revealed fully in the second
act. Therefore, Terayama could have written a play about the ‘resurrection of theflesh’, where the body represented a new church and sexuality the new sacrament(Sorgenfrei 1992, 123). While allusions to Christian religious ideas could hardly
be understood in Japan, in guest performances abroad, the messages were apparent(Sorgenfrei 1978, 183). A German critic wrote, “If ... in derision of sacral images
religious classical music is satirically abused, then a not yet completely denatured7）A Lehrstück is a type of ‘teaching play’ in the tradition of playwright Bertolt Brecht. The plot of thedrama should serve as a parable for social relationships and in interspersed songs or comments theaudience should be taught the right point of view, which in Brecht’s intention was always leftist.

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Christianity as well as a humanistically open socialist society can only say ‘no’
(Hübner 1969, 20)”.
The strange mother-son relationship in Kegawa no Marie had a striking similarity
to the one in Aomori-Ken no Semushi Otoko. By the end of the sixties, this might
have seemed provocative because of the emphasis on homosexuality, but in fact itshould not be overlooked that Terayama’s own relationship with his mother wasreflected in these plays. Terayama’s relationship with her was probably especiallyclose because she had reared him alone after his father had been drafted into themilitary. When his father did not return from the war, his mother left him withrelatives and went to work on an American military base. In several of Terayama’s
works and in the autobiographical film Denen ni Shisu (Dying in the Paddies)8）,
this problematic mother-son relationship can be recognized. The mother-role wasoften played by a male actor, as if Terayama was looking for a substitute for his
lost father. In this respect, Terayama’s Orestes complex can be seen again.
Moving in new creative directions
Sho o Sute Yo, Machi e Deyô
After three dramatic yet similarly conceived plays, Terayama tried to move ina new creative direction in 1968. With the production of Sho o Sute Yo, Machi
e Deyô (Throw Away Your Books, Go Onto the Streets), he gave up the idea oftheater as pure fiction (Senda 1995, 139). He let students who had publishedpoems in a magazine perform and gave them the option of reciting these poems on
stage, accompanied by rock music. He called this type of performance dokurama,8）This film was shown abroad under the title Cache Cache Pastoral.

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which was a blend of documentary and drama concepts. It was a kind of théâtre
vérité as a counterpart to cinéma vérité (Courdy 2000, 257) and harsh social
criticism could be heard in this production (Senda 1995, 140).
There were reprisals of Sho o Sute Yo, Machi e Deyô in 1969 and 1970. A filmwith the same name was produced in 1971, but only the opening scenes refer tothe theater performance. Essentially, the movie was about the life and first sexual
experiences of a teenager, interrupted by different scenes from everyday life.
Scenes from other plays (such as Kegawa no Marie) were referenced in addition
to Terayama’s early street theater. It was an experimental film, with incomplete,restless camera work, a mix of black-and-white and color, and intentionally underand over exposed frames.
Jinriki-Hikôki Solomon
Terayama’s next step was his experimental production of Jinriki-Hikôki Solomon(Solomon, the Man-Powered Airplane). Here his intention was to embed theater
consistently within everyday life. As a result, this was a street-theater production.
It began at noon and finished at sunset (Terayama 1971, 14). The spectators got a
map in which approximate directions were stated with arrows that marked where
they should look for ‘theaters’. The protagonists had a solid workload with a fullschedule. One was a long-distance runner wearing a signboard that read, ‘Speak tome!’ He was only allowed to stop if somebody really spoke to him. Another actor
had to sell crocodiles, a second had to buy ‘parents, which become useless’, anda third had to look for Popeye spinach cans in drugstores. On this occasion, much
improvisational skill was demanded. The spectators were encouraged to take partand to sing along with the songs (Terayama 1971, 15). The last arrow then led tothe ‘take-off point’ of the airplane. The actors climbed a mechanical contraption－ 293 －

富山大学人文学部紀要and ‘took off,’ accompanied by rock music, leaving their families, and sterilesociety behind (Terayama 1971, 16).
The theme in Jinriki-hikôki Solomon was one that reappeared in several of
Terayama’s works: average citizens who are stuck in reality can never overcome
gravity on their own. Only through the use of revolutionary imagination can thisbe accomplished. Then through the power of imagination, mankind is able to
fly like birds (Sorgenfrei 1978, 195). In 1971, Terayama’s troop was invited toperform Jinriki-hikôki Solomon in France and Holland (Senda 1995, 149). In avideo broadcast on Dutch television of a performance in Arnheim, one can see
how the big airplane made from wood and paper was burned up in the end. It went
up in flames as a symbol of how only the spirit lends us wings in order to leap
skyward.
Garigari-hakase no Hanzai
For Terayama, the opposite of street theater was ‘room theater’. He therefore
presented Garigari-hakase no Hanzai (The Crime of Dr. Garigari) on a uniquelyarranged stage in his first playhouse, which was built in 1969. This play took
place simultaneously in different areas, or ‘rooms’, but the setting was meant to be
the house of a family. For this purpose, the stage and the auditorium were divided
with curtains into different sections. Different characters performed in eachsection. For example, the father performed in the bedroom, the daughter was in thebathroom, and the grandmother was in the dining room. There was also a lodger
in the toilet. The story began at seven o’clock. The doorbell rang, and an uninvited
guest emerged from the public, embracing the servant and calling him father,－ 294 －

Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later

although the servant denied his paternity.9）Both then agreed that they would play
the roles of father and son in the show (Sorgenfrei 1978, 212). Simultaneously,a scene began at seven o’clock in the Japanese bathroom where the daughterand two adolescents were bathing. She was trying to pretend to be the mother ofthe ‘boys’, but they were uncooperative, claiming that they had only been paid
to play the roles of her children and were clearly developing a sexual interest inher (Sorgenfrei 1978, 214). Also at seven o’clock, another scene began in thedining room where the grandmother and her seven guests methodically listened
to sitar music. However, the guests did not speak a word. Only the grandmotherspoke, but in absurd monologues. In not one of the three scenes did anyone speak
continuously, so there were occasional moments of silent actions. Since it wasnecessary for all the scenes to end simultaneously, the first intermission occurred
after all three scenes were completed (Sorgenfrei 1978, 216).
At eight o’clock, the second act began. There were scenes with the two sons of thehouse. One thought he was a detective and pretended to possess keys to various
locked doors, but he could not find the doors to which the keys belonged. The
second son had a tape recorder. He recorded one half of a conversation, leaving
pauses after each sentence. After rewinding the machine, he carried on a complete
conversation with it, speaking within the silent gaps (Sorgenfrei 1978, 220).
The third scene took place in the bedroom where the father was absorbed in theoperation of a strange machine until the servant came to inform him about the9）One assignment in Terayama’s street theater workshops involved having a participant call a passer-by‘father’ and then insist that he is meeting him for the first time unexpectedly in the street after having
not seeing him for a long time (Terayama 1983, 77). According to Terayama, one time a Dutch actor
in Holland was really taken seriously, and the ‘father’ ended up taking him home and entertaining him(Terayama 1983, 255). This could be regarded as a good improvisational exercise on the one hand, buton the other hand, it could also be seen as Terayama’s hidden attempt to find his own lost father.

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presence of the uninvited guest, at which point a family meeting needed be called(Sorgenfrei 1978, 222).
At nine o’clock, after the second intermission, the family met together in one
room. The spectators, who were viewed as invited guests and whose number was
restricted to forty, could sit wherever they felt comfortable, but no one had seen allof the scenes in all of the rooms. This fragmented viewing experience forced thespectators to imagine the missing parts of the action (Sorgenfrei 1978, 209). The
entire stage and all of the actors were made visible to the audience only during thelast part of the play (Sorgenfrei 1978, 224). The father opened a family conference
which required the distribution of a unique set of cards. These cards represented
the various roles of each family member. Each character tried to get the card
which represented their own role (Sorgenfrei 1978, 224). However, the card forthe oldest son was missing, and the uninvited guest announced that the oldest son
had already died. The servant tried to cut him off, but the uninvited guest insisted
on becoming part of the family (Sorgenfrei 1978, 225). The uninvited guest thendiscussed the shifting roles everyone played in daily life with the servant andclaimed he could play all possible roles, like a joker. He also insisted present andpast were only fiction (Sorgenfrei 1978, 227).
For Terayama, the fragmented perceptions of the play by the audience wasanalogous to their perceptions of everyday life (Terayama 1971, 13). When he wasinvited in 1970 to stage Kegawa no Marie at the La Mama Theater in New Yorkwith American actors, he experimented with a similar method. He wanted to breakaway from a fixed text (Terayama 1971, 55) and tried to emphasize the conceptof the fractional nature of each person’s view of reality. However, the attempt
to change the original dramatic structure of the play did not completely succeed－ 296 －

Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later(Sorgenfrei 1978, 169).
Ahen Sensô
For Terayama, a transitional step between ‘room theater’ and ‘street theater’ was‘labyrinth theater’. An experimental performance of Ahen Sensô (Opium War)
took place in 1972 in Amsterdam. The spectators were gathered in front of thetheater and then led through an adventurous path over a broken wall and undersome hanging laundry to a place where a labyrinth with nine secret chambers was
positioned (Terayama 1983, 139). The task for the spectators was to search in thelabyrinth for a certain person called ‘Han’. The actors were interspersed within theaudience, so it was on the paths and in the secret chambers where the theatricalactivities took place. For example, there was a sentry at a customs station who
asked the spectators puzzling questions for which only those who knew theanswers were allowed to pass (Terayama 1983, 140). In one chamber, a naked
man asked a spectator to sit down in a chair. Then the naked man blindfolded him,
took off some of his clothes and began to rub him with oil and massage his upper
body (Terayama 1983, 141).
Ahen Sensô was close to a sideshow attraction. Terayama wanted to play withthe spectators and assault their complacency by involving and forcing them toparticipate imaginatively in the theatrical adventure. He produced an atmosphereof amusement, but also an intentional feeling of claustrophobia (Sorgenfrei 1978,
220). Some spectators in the labyrinth got lost and did not know what was goingon as they heard sounds and voices coming from everywhere. There were alsointerior walls that obstructed their way (Terayama 1983, 260). Some laughedabout this, while others were afraid and banged on the walls calling, “Let us out!”(Terayama 1983, 139). Eventually these walls were reduced so that the spectators－ 297 －

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could find their way out. However, since the performance was also meant to
reduce interpersonal distance, i.e. the ‘walls’ that separate people in everyday
life, the participants had to introduce themselves outside by stating their names(Terayama 1983, 140).
The experiences which Terayama created with his early theater experiments
strengthened his conviction that anyone could become an actor (Senda 1995,
140). In his view, actors trained by drama schools were not at all necessary.
Terayama said, “Eliminating the actor is the biggest task of the modern theater”(Terayama 1971, 86). By this he meant both the Brechtian-style actor as wellas those from the Stanislawski school.10）Above all, the idea that actors shouldchange themselves on stage displeased him. In his opinion, people that changed
themselves were hypocrites in daily life. An actor should appear as he is anddemonstrate his corporality (Terayama 1971, 91).
Terayama therefore used the term ‘underground theater’ somewhat like a shieldbecause under this cover he could work undisturbed. He intentionally did not stickto the rules of how to make theater. The façade of the playhouse in the Shibuya
district, which he had used since 1969 for Tenjô Sajiki, was decorated with aclown-face collage made up from body parts of big female dolls and bicycle
tires.11）In the evening during performances, it was illuminated with neon lights.
The stage was in the cellar, and the auditorium consisted of about 40 seats. On the
ground floor, Terayama’s mother ran a coffeehouse, and the office was on the first10）Simply explained, according to Stanislawski, an actor should identify himself with the role, butaccording to Brecht, an actor should only stay in character and act with emotional distance.
11）The façade of the Terayama Museum in Aomori reminds visitors of this theater because it issimilarly decorated.

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floor (Senda 1995, 142).
Finding acceptance and acknowledgement abroad
With his provocative attitude, Terayama stood in opposition to the shingeki aswell as to other practitioners of contemporary Japanese theater. Because of his
experimental approach, he did not rely on the traditional theatrical frameworks
that the others did. Consequently, he did not achieve mainstream acceptance inJapan. However, he did manage to find acknowledgment abroad at an earlier age
than other young Japanese theater practitioners. In 1969, Tenjô Sajiki was invited
to the international avant-garde theater festival, Experimenta 3, in Frankfurt.
There they presented Inugami (God Dog) and Kegawa no Marie to great acclaim,much to their surprise (Senda 1995, 145).
The organizers of the Experimenta 3 festival became aware of Terayama because
he had won two awards in Italy for two radio plays produced by the Japanese
broadcast network NHK: The Mountain Witch (Prix Italia 1964) and Comet Ikeya(Prix Italia 1966). As a result, he received approval as a dramatist outside Japan(Kujô 2003, 37). However, one condition for participation in Experimenta 3 wasthat Tenjô Sajiki had to pay for their own pre-production costs and travel expenses.
However, getting financial support in Japan was unthinkable because according to
official opinion, underground theater was not representative of Japanese culture－ 299 －

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at that time12） (Kujô 2003, 38). After struggling to scrape together the necessary
funding, the Tenjô Sajiki troop finally made it to Germany in time for the festival.
Their guest performance took place on the 3rd and 4th of June in 1969 at theTheater am Turm. Kegawa no Marie had already been staged before in Japan, but
the production of Inugami in Frankfurt was a world premiere (Sorgenfrei 1978,
143).
InugamiIn Inugami, young Tsukio was possessed by a God Dog. Tsukio grew up without
friends under his grandmother’s care in a village. The circumstances of his birthwere already mysterious because it was rumored that his mother had been raped in
the mountains by a wild dog before she gave birth to him. His relatives intended
to kill him if he showed any animal characteristics, but he turned out to be anormal baby. Tsukio was raised by his grandmother because his mother had diedyoung. However, he had a strange character which marked him as eccentric in theeyes of others. As a result, he was treated as a shunned outcast. His only friend
was a stray white dog. Villagers claimed that the dog had been killing chickens
and rooting up gardens, so they demanded that it be put to death. Tsukio therefore
hid the dog from the angry villagers (Sorgenfrei 1994b, 82). When Tsukio grewup, his grandmother found a bride for him from another village. However, themorning after the wedding night, Tsukio vanished and the bride was found lying
dead in her bed with a neat red wound on her throat (Sorgenfrei 1978, 145).

12）The Japan Foundation was established a few years later in 1972 as an “agency primarily responsible
for the funding and hands-on management of Japan’s official cultural relations” (Thornbury 2000,
214). But Terayama’s troop could never profit from it, and even success abroad did not bring them any
official financial support. Therefore the troop was faced with the same problem, lack of money, witheach additional guest performance invitation. Ensemble members sometimes had to work part-timejobs in order to raise money for their travel expenses (Kujô 2003, 39).

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Inugami resembled a lively version of an old Japanese legend, but its theme wasabout the social repression of individuals. The setting was a rural province where
people still believed human beings could be possessed by spirits. Terayama set
this story in an ominous atmosphere in which the characters seem just as eerie
as spirits. Tsukio was depicted as being under the control of supernatural forces(Sorgenfrei 1994b, 83). Terayama called this “a play for masks”, so all of thecharacters wore special white-face masks that were created by Awazu Kiyoshi(Sorgenfrei 1978, 143). The story was told by an old woman character, like a tale.
There were also black-robed kuroko, the stage assistants often used in kabuki andbunraku. Their faces were covered with black cloth so that the audience could
imagine them as invisible on the stage. They acted on the one hand as puppeteers:
they manipulated the dog, which was a large cardboard puppet. On the other
hand, they brought props on the stage, which featured a minimalist design. The
kuroko took on further tasks that went beyond their traditional function when theyimitated sounds and animal voices or spoke in chorus. This behaviour was meant
to represent the ‘people’s opinion’ of the events in the play (Sorgenfrei 1978, 145).
Furthermore, the old woman supplemented the narrative with stories of events that
occurred over the course of many years, a litany of disease, suicide, accidents, andwar, all of which resulted in only the very old and very young surviving (Sorgenfrei
1978, 145). It was also told that Tsukio’s mother ended her own life when he wasjust five, and that his father left with another woman.
Despite its experimental character, Inugami was deeply rooted in Japanesetheatrical tradition, which is quite apparent from photos of the performance. Ina review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (June 5-6, 1969), the following
imagery of Terayama’s direction was noted as being especially successful: the－ 301 －

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stylized gestures, dancer-like movements, and a scene in which the kuroko
appeared to observe everything and everyone in the village with big eyes. In
another scene, a symbolic transformation of Tsukio into a dog was carried out
on stage. The play was a hauntingly beautiful, lyrical, and subtly disturbing folk
legend (Sorgenfrei 1994a, 164).
Sorgenfrei interpreted Inugami in different ways. First, the dog could be seen as
the alter ego of Tsukio, who had to take on the role of scapegoat for a bygone
incident (Sorgenfrei 1993, 98). But in another interpretation, she indicated that thebride is explicitly and simultaneously an incarnation of the dead mother (Sorgenfrei
1994a, 165). She defended this theory with the fact that in Japanese folk tales,
women are routinely discovered to be foxes in disguise (Sorgenfrei 1994b, 82).
Sorgenfrei saw the mother’s rape in Aomori-ken no Semushi Otoko as symbolicof Japan’s rape by advanced industrial nations, and the hunchback as a victimof the atomic bomb. However, in Inugami, the mother’s rape represented thewar atrocities committed by Japan. The father’s sins were passed on to Tsukio,
who was eternally polluted. By analogy, Japan could never fully join the worldcommunity because it too was polluted, contaminated by nuclear impurities(Sorgenfrei 1994a, 166). However, this kind of interpretation seems a little bit
arbitrary. The origin stories of Tsukio and the Hunchback seem almost identical.
When Sorgenfrei said that the mother’s claim to have been raped by a dog could
be only a sign of her insanity (Sorgenfrei 1994b, 83), she contradicted herself.
With this inconsistent analysis, Sorgenfrei unintentionally demonstrated it is
impossible to explain the ambiguous multiple meanings of most Japanese dramas(not only Terayama’s) with simple one-sided interpretations.

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Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades laterJashûmonTerayama went to London after Experimenta 3 and saw performances of the
Living Theater. He then came back to Japan from his European trip not only withnew inspiration but also with assuredness that he was on the right creative path.
When he saw a performance of Paradise Now in London, somebody from thepublic had yelled, “Stop it, it’s boring!” But the actor’s reaction from the stage
was, “If it is boring, come and make it better” (Terayama 1971, 29). Terayama
then announced this maxim in Japan: “If theater is boring, then the public is half
to blame” (Senda 1995, 145).
The first guest performances of Tenjô Sajiki in Europe were unexpectedly
successful sensations, but in the following years, Terayama’s group gradually
settled into the international avant-garde theater scene. In 1971, Terayama
presented Jashûmon (The Gate of the Heretics), a provocatively shrill production,
at a theater festival in Nancy, France. In the beginning, the audience was kept
waiting in the lobby until a large, impatient crowd had gathered. Finally the doors
to the auditorium were opened, and the crowd pushed its way into almost total
darkness. Some black-robed kuroko stood at the entrances and guarded blackpedestals upon which candles flickered. Other kuroko moved aggressively among
the audience, yelling threateningly, shoving against and provoking the spectatorsby shining bright lights into their eyes (Sorgenfrei 1978, 253).
With this aggressive tactic, Terayama tried to attack the audience’s passivity as
he had done in many of his previous productions. Terayama wanted to disturb
the passive, consumer-oriented spectator mentality of the average theater-going
public. The stage itself was draped in red. Huge reproductions of Japanesepaintings by Ekin (1812-1876) formed the proscenium, wings, and backdrops.
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In addition to these paintings, which showed scenes of lust and violence, a kindof watchtower and cross were constructed in the center (Sorgenfrei 1978, 253).
At the performance, there was no actual separation between stage area andauditorium. The acting area was dispersed around the auditorium. It included thestage proper, two long runways like the hanamichi in kabuki, and six platforms
around the sides and rear of the seating area. The actors also used the aisles andeven the spectators’ seats at various times during the production. Members of theaudience were pulled up from their seats, abused and threatened by the kuroko,
and made at last to become actors in the drama (Sorgenfrei 1978, 253). The
kuroko were less assistants than sovereigns over the actors and audience, whowere manipulated like puppets. In other words, the kuroko watched and controlled
everything (Sorgenfrei 1978, 253).
Jashûmon was about a young man called Yamatarô, who was in conflict between
his love for his mother and sexual desire. The woman whom he desired wasa prostitute. She demanded that if he wanted to possess her, he must abandon
his mother. Yamatarô was admittedly not the first that she had driven into sucha conflict, but he could not resist her. He tied his mother up (who was again
played by a male actor), put her in an old sack13）and carried her away. However,Yamatarô’s new bride refused to have sex with him because she did not believethat he had really abandoned his mother. Even if he had, she could not sleep withsuch a polluted sinner. However, his mother was still alive because of an ironic
mistake — another man had tried in a similar way to abandon his mother — andthe bags got confused when checked at a railway station. As a result, Yamatoro’s13） The Japanese word fukuro can be defined as both ‘sack’ and a slang word for ‘mother’ (Sorgenfrei
1994b, 79).

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Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades latermother became free again (Sorgenfrei 1978, 263). She returned just in time to seethat her son was not happy and regretted what he had done.
As Yamatarô lunged forward to murder his bride, the kuroko held him back sothat he could not move. As a result, it became clear that puppets were powerlessbecause they were manipulated by puppet-masters, who symbolized socialpressure and expectations. The only chance for liberation was if all of them were
gotten rid of. Therefore, Yamatarô killed the kuroko. At the end, the other actors
also revolted, giving up their roles and removing their costumes in order to turn tothe public with impromptu words until all shouted together, “Down with theater!”(Sorgenfrei 1978, 268). Here Terayama wanted to show that all people, even the
public, were manipulated. Because the behaviors were all socially determined,
it was apparently a play about basic emotions. Society made rules according to
how people arranged their lives and therefore all human beings were manipulated
in some manner. “The wheel of fate, pulled by strings, goes round and round”(Sorgenfrei 1978, 262).
Increasing popularity in Japan
Jidai wa Circus no Zô ni Notte
The success of Tenjô Sajiki abroad brought more attention to Terayama’s
performances in Japan. In 1969, the year of their first guest performance inGermany, the production of Jidai wa Circus no Zô ni Notte (We’re all riding on－ 305 －

富山大学人文学部紀要

a Circus Elephant)14） became a success in Japan. The stage was designed like aboxing ring in which the actors were playing, dancing, and singing. Fifteen actors
appeared altogether, but not all of them always acted in the ring. Some of themstayed outside but were still visible to the public. There they prepared for theirnext appearance, changing outfits and wigs, but they retained interest in what
was happening on stage by interjecting words or acting as a rhythm and blues
chorus (Sorgenfrei 1978, 230). The play was divided into many single scenes, andthe general theme was criticism of America and the American war in Vietnam.
Stereotypical Americans were mocked as well as the ‘American way of life’,
which was copied by the Japanese at that time (Sorgenfrei 1978, 234). In theirattempt to speak English, they only repeated pointlessly absurd phrases. The playtried to highlight the price Japanese society paid for its economic miracle: the lossof its cultural identity (Sorgenfrei 1992, 123).
Another sign of Tenjô Sajiki’s growing popularity in Japan was a song fromthe play called Toki ni wa Haha no Nai Ko no Yô Ni (From Time to Time Likea Motherless Child) that became a hit record (Senda 1995, 146). This called
profiteers into action. Terayama’s playhouse was selected for a sightseeing tour
that was promoted as a Night of Adventures in Tokyo. Other attractions on the tour
were a visit to a gay bar and a haunted café (Senda 1995, 146).

14）After his success in Experimenta 3, Terayama was invited to stage the play with the German title“Unsere Zeit reitet auf dem Rücken eines Zirkuselefanten” in Essen, Germany (Terayama 1983, 81).
The explanation for the title was as follows: “America is the elephant which we must train so that hewill not destroy us”. Terayama used layman actors and a beat band for the performance. Male actors
embodied Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe. In a German review, it was referred to it as “A sharply
lit revue of the fear, aggression, and agitation against Americanism that one can hardly think of more
hatefully (Waidelich 1994, 270).

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Rising fame and controversy
As Tenjô Sajiki became famous, prejudices against the group neverthelessincreased. Terayama not only made sexuality and death common themes in a lotof his works, but there was also a sadomasochistic symbolism in his productions,as can be seen in numerous photos. The erotic atmosphere and dirty jokes inthe dialogues were provocative. The playwright Yamazaki Tetsu, who saw early
performances of the Tenjô Sajiki as a student, confirmed this fact (Corona 1997,30). This atmosphere tended to attract voyeurs in the audiences. Terayama was not
pleased about the development of Tenjô Sajiki becoming a sightseeing attraction(Terayama 1983, 107). While his rising popularity had its advantages, expectations
for more sensationalistic performances grew among the spectators who came off
the tourist buses. In the end, the group ended up canceling this arrangement (Senda
1995, 146).
However, a new idea originated from the failed tourism experience: only the firstpart of Tenjô Sajiki’s next production (called Yes) took place at the playhouse.
For the second part, the public had to go by bus to an unknown location. In order
to increase the tension, the windows of the bus were covered with cloth, as in atheater experiment that Terayama had learned about in New York (Terayama 1971,88). Upon arrival at the second location, the spectators were led into an apartment
in which a couple was eating dinner. Ignoring protests by the couple, the guide
had the spectators sit down around them. The couple finally calmed down andcontinued their dinner. The audience was able to witness a typical domestic scene
as ‘theater’ (Senda 1995, 148). This production was not written and directed by
Terayama, but by Takenaga Shigeo (Sorgenfrei 1978, 205). Nevertheless, it wasanother step for Terayama in his quest to blur the border between fiction andreality and between theater and real life.
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Knock: The end of Terayama’s street theater
Terayama’s performance of Knock was the climax and sudden end of his street
theater experiments. Various theater activities took place in almost thirty different
performance sites before approximately a thousand spectators altogether, andthe entire event lasted about thirty hours. It began in the afternoon at 3pm on a
Saturday in April, 1975 and ended the next day at 9pm in the evening (Senda
1997, 56). The spectacle finished with a scandal that was overblown by the media.
Like in Jinriki-Hikôki Solomon, each paying spectator got a map at a subway
station in downtown Tokyo. There were designated places to which one had towalk. Theater critic Senda Akihiko, who participated in the experiment, got his‘admission ticket’ from a man with an eye patch dressed strangely in black (Senda
1997, 57). The hand-drawn map contained written statements of what one could
expect at the different sites, but not in detail. Every spectator had to find his
own ‘personal drama’ en route, putting together all the pieces like a puzzle. This
forced each individual spectator to look at everyday life in a more theatrical way.
For example, there was a puzzling set named Drosselmeyer’s Clockwork Store.
Senda (1997, 57) was confused about whether he would find a normal businessin a somewhat strange store or whether it would just be a regular theatrical set.
Sometimes the protagonists could be recognized easily by their costumes or
performance, such as an acrobatic act in a park or a loudly arguing couple on thestreet surrounded by spectators. However, fiction could spill over into reality at
any moment, as with the scene in which a postman called out, “Stop that thief!”
while pointing to a woman who was fleeing. Passers-by ran after her and took her
to a police station, where it took time to sort out the fiction and reality (Courdy
2000, 257). In other instances, actors and spectators could not be separated at firstglance, as in a public bath in which everyone sat naked in the water while bathing－ 308 －

Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later(Senda 1997, 59). It was only when a group action began that it became clear who
was acting and who was watching. As a result, the protagonists often did not seemdifferent from ordinary people because they acted in scenes which could actually
be happening on any given day (Senda 1995, 150).
The theatrical framework which dictates that spectators do the watching while
only the actors are watched was discontinued in Knock. Spectators who were on
the lookout for typical theatrical scenes did not always know who was an actor.
For the actors, it was also not always clear who belonged to the paying public andwho was only there by chance, especially when the spectators appeared little bylittle. Sometimes, nothing in particular happened before the spectators because
Terayama wanted to deliberately confuse the audience with some of the statementson the maps (Senda 1997, 59). This opened up new perspectives, namely thateveryone could be an incognito actor. For example, the police officer who always
appeared with his bicycle at the performance spots may have also been an actor
instead of an observer (Senda 1995, 150).
The play scripts and production were not created by Terayama himself but bysome of his co-workers (Rolf & Gillespie 1992, 242). There was no dialog written
in a traditional linear manner, but rather a menu of numbered sentences that could
be spoken by the actors at will. This format made it easier to match actions exactlywith the play’s schedule (Rolf & Gillespie 1992, 243).
The big Knock scandal
Senda (1995, 150) wrote about the big scandal that occurred at the end of Knock.
The climax of the event was the appearance of mummies in a park during theevening. For this purpose, the actors were completely covered in bandages. While－ 309 －

富山大学人文学部紀要

in costume, one of them tried to enter a house. The housewife was so startledby the strange and scary visitor that she notified the police. Fiction had changed
into reality again, but this time it was not planned. The next day, the incident was
picked up by the media, and slanderous coverage exaggerated it into a scandal
as upright journalists were outraged over this “annoyance of peaceful citizens”(Senda, 1995, 150). In the Asahi-shinbun, Terayama got an opportunity to justify
his experiment. He wrote that he was looking for new perspectives that would
wake people up from their trivial everyday lives. The title, Knock, referred
to knocking on locked hearts as well as on locked doors (Senda 1995, 151).
However, since there was an inherent danger of public disturbance during thiskind of play, the authorities prohibited it from being repeated (Senda 1995, 151).
Since a favorite idea of Terayama’s was that art and theater were more effective
change agents for society than political agitation (Senda 1995, 151), it was very
difficult for him to accept that experiments like Knock were no longer allowed tocontinue (Senda 1995, 152).
Forcing audience participation
Kankyakuseki
In 1976, Terayama gave up his former playhouse and moved with his troop toa new one. In 1978, with the production of Kankyakuseki (Auditorium Seats),
he tried out a different method in which to force audience participation. In thisproduction, after everyone had taken a seat, the doors were locked and the theater
was declared to be a secret room. Black-robed cast members were present in theauditorium, creating a dark and mysterious atmosphere (Corona 1997, 18). Likein Jashûmon, the kuroko-actors went around and insisted that certain people,
whether they wanted to or not, take over their roles. The audience reactions on this－ 310 －

Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades lateroccasion were considered part of the performance. Naturally, many people refused
to take part and offered up excuses (Terayama 1983, 264). But excuses did notserve any purpose at that point because from that moment on, the spectators wereno longer simply watching — they were the focal point of attention. Improvisation
was therefore an important element of the performance, but the deliberate attempts
to force audience participation also engendered some discomfort among spectators(Senda 1995, 153).
Terayama (1983, 266) describes what happened next: After individual spectators
were taken from the auditorium as ‘volunteers’, a bell rang, music began toplay, and the curtain rose. However, there was a second curtain behind thefirst, and after that a third one appeared. After the third curtain went up, a bare,
dimly lit stage could be seen. All of these steps were designed as attacks against
public expectations for what should happen in a typical theater production. The
spectators who were forced to perform on stage were given more or less simple
tasks to complete. For example, one was put into a coffin, while another had
to put turtles into a refrigerator. Other tasks included counting the remaining
Sundays on a calendar or making three different alarm clocks ring simultaneously(Terayama 1983, 264). Also, money was hidden throughout the auditorium, andthe spectators were asked to look for it under their seats. A more difficult task
was to call prominent people and talk with them on the telephone from the stage(Terayama 1983, 269). The performance was intended to last 90 minutes, but
if anything unintended or interesting happened, the evening could last longer.
This type of performance was not so different from television shows in which
participants had to answer questions or solve other tasks. In contrast, from the
beginning, Terayama wanted to keep open the question of who was an actor andwho was an audience recruit (Terayama 1983, 269).
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Reactions against forced audience participation
The roots of the Kankyakuseki experiment could be found in Jashûmon, in which
the kuroko also forced people to act (Terayama 1983, 10). Spectators were notallowed to leave the auditorium during a performance unless they vehemently
insisted. This was all done in service of a mysterious atmosphere (Terayama 1983,22). Naturally, this practice did not sit well with some theater critics. According
to Terayama (1983, 20), Roland Wiegenstein became very angry during a guest
performance of Jashûmon in Germany. His article in the German magazine
Der Spiegel took the matter up under the headline, Hitler war besser (Hitler
was better) and interpreted the play as an “act of force”.15） Prior to the show,
Wiegenstein became outraged when he did not receive a VIP seat as a critic. After
finally calming down, he watched the performance from the back. After a while,
he wanted to leave, but a kuroko did not let him out. At this point he yelled that hewas being unlawfully detained (Terayama 1983, 22). Later, he claimed that he had
wanted to escape from the loud and smoke filled theater but was prevented fromdoing so by “fist blows and karate hits” (Spiegel 44, 1972, 170). Later on, during a
discussion with Terayama (1983, 24), Wiegenstein emphasized that actors did nothave the right to touch spectators because they did not have anything to do withthe performance and should have been allowed to stand apart from it. However,this was exactly the attitude that Terayama wanted to challenge, so Kankyakuseki
became an important artistic concern for him. He therefore continued theatricalexperiments like this as a protest against the general convention (Corona 1997,
21).

15）Despite its serious reputation, the Spiegel magazine misinterpreted the performance of Jashûmon
intentionally in a review and even quoted defamations from the dubious German mass publication
Bild-Zeitung, which called Tenjô Sajiki an “epidemic from Japan”.

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Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later

Larger theatrical spectacles
In the following years, Terayama’s productions became ever bigger. Senda (1997,89) describes the staging of Nuhikun (Directions to Servants) in 1978 at theTokyo International Trade Center, which was billed as a huge theatrical spectacle.
Terayama had a giant arena at his disposal. The stage was like an island in thecenter of the auditorium, surrounded by spectators. In the early 1980s, Tenjô
Sajiki was invited with this production to Europe and America for several guest
performances. This was the last international success before Terayama’s untimely
death and dissolution of the troop.
Nuhikun was partly based on Jonathan Swift and partly on motifs from the works
of Japanese author Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933). Terayama had borrowed names
from Miyazawa’s most well-known protagonists. The premise was also influenced
by Genet’s The Maids because in Nuhikun, slaves lived in a house without amaster. However, they did not want to feel free without reign, so they chose asovereign from among them in time to stabilize their power structure to prevent
anarchy (Senda 1995, 154). The first scene showed naked men sitting on chairs
as a symbol of absolute equality. However, after one of them was prepared to be
the ‘sacred master’ he immediately began to rule, and while the ‘obedient slaves’obeyed his commands, subversive resistance began to form with the eventual goalof overthrowing him. In Terayama’s view, that was a simile for the present social
condition. If the people have no master, they are unhappy; However, once they getone, they become even more unhappy (Takatori 2003, 168).
Originally, this community of masterless servants was meant to be a utopianclassless society with complete freedom for all, but Terayama had the protagonists－ 313 －

富山大学人文学部紀要

realize their desires for power recklessly, and the ‘ideal society’ changed into asadomasochistic universe (Senda 1997, 90). This reversal of common notionsof freedom, equality, and brotherhood could be seen as criticism of a distorted
democratic system in which the powerful, who pretend to be legitimized throughthe majority, rule like in all other political systems. Terayama seemed to suggestthat fascism can lurk in the shadows of democracy (Sorgenfrei 1978, 198).
A dramatic principle that marked Terayama’s later works also became clear
in the production of Nuhikun. The performance fragmented into individual
scenes or loosely-interconnected scene cycles. Each of these scenes came to a
climax, which ended up working like a kind of tableaux vivant (living picture),
before they dissolved again (Senda 1997, 88). This dramatic principle had somesimilarity with scenic realization in kabuki, where the mie pose freezes the action
for a moment at a climax and creates a living picture. However, in Terayama’s
productions, some scenes already began like tableaus, only to dissolve in order toform new ones. The scenic actions often took place formlessly, but in the tableau,
they took shape again.
Terayama’s later years: a period of intensive artistic creativity
In the last years of his life, Terayama developed an intensive artistic practicewhich resulted in a number of productions. The titles of three plays, whichappeared in a cycle, alluded to known western playwrites. The first was 1973’s
Môjin Shokan (Lettre sur les Aveugles), based on Diderot. In 1976 he released
two plays, Ekibyô Ryûkôki (A Journal of the Plague Year), based on Daniel
Defoe and Ahôbune (Ship of Fools), based on Sebastian Brandt. Takatori (2003,
164) wrote about a guest performance of Ahôbune that took place shortly before－ 314 －

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the fall of the shah of Persia at the Shiraz Festival in Iran. The skeleton of agigantic ship was displayed on stage, but one could not tell whether it was still inconstruction or already a wreck. In 1977, Terayama staged his version of Chûgoku
no Fushigi na Yakunin (The Wonderful Mandarin). In 1978 came Nuhikun, andin 1979, Aohigekô no Shiro (Bluebeard’s Castle). With these plays he created asadomasochistic universe, but in a kind of commercial show-business style in thevein of the takarazuka shows (Takatori 2003, 167). Aohigekô no Shiro, which was
originally performed in 1968 (Sorgenfrei 1978, 120), was a kind of theater withina theater, with the stage manager also taking part as a character. In this production,
as described in Takahashi (2003, 98), six murdered wives met behind the stage
while the seventh waited in vain for Bluebeard, who did not appear.
In 1978 Terayama staged Shintokumaru, a play he wrote with co-author Kishida
Rio. Later a reworked version of this play became famous when it was directed by
Japanese star director Ninagawa Yukio. Terayama’s original version worked quite
differently on stage. It was accompanied by traditional shamisen music, like in
his earlier works, but also included rock music and operatic echoes reminiscent ofCarl Orff. The composer was J.A. Seaser, and the music was played live on stage.
As a result, Terayama’s original version was subtitled a “curiosity-show-opera”.
There was little dialogue in each scene, which consisted mostly of monologues orchants. In some scenes, a part was spoken, but then the counterpart was sung. The
story was based on an old legend which had already been brought to the stage forbunraku and kabuki productions.
Shintokumaru was the name of a young man whose mother had died. His
stepmother tried to get rid of him with a magic curse in order to replace him withher own child. In Terayama’s version, Shintokumaru grieved about his mother and－ 315 －

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did not want to accept his stepmother. A mysterious mask dealer gave him a ‘blackhole’ which he called the ‘exit from the world’. Through this hole, Shintokumaru
descended into the underworld to meet his dead mother in a highly symbolic scene
which appeared in altered forms in later Terayama plays.
In 1979, Terayama created Lemmings, and in 1981 he brought Hyakunen no
Kôdoku (One-Hundred Years of Loneliness) to the stage (Senda 1995, 153).
The production of the latter took place on five different stage areas that wereinterconnected with walkways where actors sometimes performed simultaneously.
The topic was inspired by a novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (Takatori 2003,174). This play turned out to be Terayama’s final theatrical production.
Terayama’s widespread body of work abroad
Terayama’s body of work, including his activities abroad, was quite prolificand diverse. He was not only invited to perform at theater festivals and guest
performances along with Tenjô Sajiki, but he also conducted workshops, produced
several films, and won several awards. 16） Last but not least, his literary anddramatic works were translated into several foreign languages.
Terayama spent a lot of time in Germany. After participating in Experimenta 3,
he was invited to stage Kegawa no Marie and Jidai wa Circus no Zô ni Nottein Essen with German actors (Corona 1997, 63). Seven years later, the German
version of Kegawa no Marie was staged in Pforzheim once again. A review called
it “a pompous transvestite dramolette”, with the critic complaining that nobody16）Above all, Denen ni Shisu achieved international attention.
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would be able understand it without previous knowledge of traditional Japanesetheater (Theater Heute 8, 1976, 56).
In 1972, Terayama and his troop were invited to the Olympic games in Munich toparticipate in Jérôme Savary’s Grand Magic Circus. They presented an open-air
theater production called Hashire Merosu (Run Merosu). Der Spiegel described
Terayama’s performance as follows: “He chases a herd of beautiful Nippon
witches in an ecstatic terror play set to lascivious ritual music, lashes, dances, andrapes which all lead into a peace celebration” (Rumler 1972, 137). However, due
to the terrorist incident that took place during the games, the performance wascancelled by the organizers (Senda 1983, 23).
Môjin Shokan
In 1974, Terayama and Tenjô Sajiki were invited to a festival in Breslau where
they presented Môjin Shokan under the English title A Note by Blind Men. The
play was a simple fable, but it had a complicated structure. A child was blindedby his mother and then abandoned because she wanted to marry another man.
After ten years, the child returned, and the mother feared his revenge. The actors
performed these events in a dance-like style (Terayama 1983, 56). Photos of
the performance also reveal that marionettes were used (Krieglstein 1974, 30).
In addition, there were two other groups of performers, one consisting of blindskinheads who tried to lighten the story, while the other was a band of hooligans
in leather jackets who attempted to darken it. According to Terayama (1983, 149),
the blind skinheads were perhaps meant to represent the “rationalizing tendency
of enlightenment”. Their bodies were covered all over with Chinese characters.
However, with their attempt to bring light into the darkness, they also wanted towipe out the irrational world, the world of dreams and imagination. Therefore, the－ 317 －

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hooligans acted as their counterpart.
The play took place mostly on a dark stage. In the beginning, matches were
distributed to the spectators (Takatori 2003, 161). This idea had come from a
London theater experiment in which King Lear was presented without stage
lighting and the actors illuminated only their faces with matches. Likewise,at least half of Môjin Shokan was not meant to be seen (Terayama 1978, 44).
In other words, he wanted to stage a drama that no spectator could see in its
entirety. The original concept was that the stage and auditorium should be notexplicitly separate: at the beginning, there was light in the theater, but the stage
was completely empty (Terayama 1983, 150). After the audience had sat down,
the hooligans nailed the entrances shut with boards, the lights went out little bylittle and impromptu dialogues were spoken (Terayama 1983, 151). After theskinheads had brought light again, a big transparent matchbox appeared on stage,
with people inside who were sleeping or already dead. They awakened like dolls
coming to life and acted out the story of the blinded child (Terayama 1983, 152).
The impression was meant to imply a daydream that was coming true or reality
appearing like a dream (Terayama 1983, 153).
A journalist who interviewed Terayama in Breslau understood Môjin Shokan as “anattempt to pass on tradition by showing its cold beauty and then breaking it down”(Krieglstein 1974, 30). According to Terayama, the story was not at all important.
For him, the way the play unfolded on stage took precedence. This approach was
designed to stimulate the imagination (Terayama 1978, 44). The music, sounds,
and dim lighting provided only a fragmentary impression of stage events, thus
making somewhat visible what could not be perceived in regular everyday life
(Terayama 1983, 144).
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Ekibyô Ryûkôki
According to Corona (1997, 16), another German version of a Terayama play
was staged in 1976 in Hamburg, called Ekibyô Ryûkôki, (in German, Im Jahr derPest). In this performance, Terayama further developed the idea he had first usedin Garigari-hakase no Hanzai where the stage and auditorium were divided into
sections with black curtains. However, this time there was a labyrinth of curtains
cutting through the audience and acting areas, creating numerous enclosed spaces.
Action occurring in one space was invisible in another although the dialogue
could be heard. At times parts of the audience were plunged into total blackness,then curtains raised again (Sorgenfrei 1978, 200).
In the play, the world was shown in a decaying state, with epidemics and otherproblems depicting the overall diseased state of mankind. In the opening scene,coffins containing people who had died from the plague were closed shut withnails, while healthy people tried to protect themselves from this scourge. Sickpeople were deported to a concentration camp, and swindlers of all types did theirdirty work. A female character calling herself ‘the illness’ went about infecting
other characters and thereby came to embody the incarnate plague that was
ravaging the land.
It was said that in the war a former nightclub had been turned into a militaryhospital. It was from this place that the epidemic had supposedly found its way
into the world. In the story, a detective character investigated this mystery in aparody of a classic Agatha Christie mystery novel. His conclusion indicated thatwar prisoners were infected on purpose with a bacillus in the cellar of the militaryhospital with the intension of spreading the plague to their home countries after
being freed. However, before this evil plan could be realized, the war came to an－ 319 －

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end, and the prisoners died in the cellar. The sole survivor later wanted to takerevenge on his torturers by releasing the plague into the world. However, as thedetective relayed his findings, the stage lights slowly went dark and remained so
until lightning and thunder began. Then, all of the men who had been killed of theplague rose from their death like sleepwalkers and began, as in the opening scene,to nail coffins shut.
It could be said that the play’s message was basically about war being the root of
all evil in the world. However, Terayama always emphasized that he had neverwanted to produce Brechtian Lehrstücke with simple political messages. For
Terayama, the mute performance in Ekibyô Ryûkôki was more important thatthe content of the script. According to him, the message of the play should betransmitted through body language (Terayama 1983, 245). This approach proved
quite useful for guest performances abroad. It enabled him to translate his plays
into music, sound, and action in order to make them comprehensible withoutwords (Kujô 2003, 39).
For Terayama, an important intention of Ekibyô Ryûkôki was to make Artaud’s
idea about the relationship between ‘theater and plague’ concretely visible(Takatori 2003, 162). In Terayama’s view, social order existed only on the surface,and horror and chaos lay below (Courdy 2000, 261).17）He wanted to distress the
public, to infect their minds and make the spectators feel the uncanny bacillus ofchaos and disorder. The restriction of perspective was a means to this end: the17）In her essay, “Antonin Artaud’s Influence on Terayama Shûji”, Courdy (2000, 261) claimed:“Terayama does not use the idea of the plague in exactly the way as Artaud did. For him, the plague
is rather a state of the world that the theatre can represent in order to be free of it. The plague is theresult of rumors which, like the disease, spread among the people”. However, this article refers only to
Terayama’s theoretical remarks.

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spectators could see only parts of the performance, and sometimes nothing at all,hearing only sounds. Therefore, Terayama looked for actors with the ability to go
beyond the script, not for ones who were enslaved by the text (Terayama 1983,
53). The opening and final scene, with the hammering of the coffins accompaniedby gloomy words that name all illnesses of mankind, worked like some kind of
conjuration (Takatori 2003, 162).
Lemmings
In terms of his intent to banish illness and death, there was a certain similarity
between Ekibyô Ryûkôki and Terayama’s production of Lemmings. On theoccasion of the retrospective in 1983 following Terayama’s death, a video of
this performance was recorded. It is one of the few original works directed by
Terayama for the theater that is still accessible today. Unfortunately, the lighting
was so poor that one could only get a vague impression of the production, such as
scenes in which the actors’ faces were illuminated with only flashlights. However,the performance was described at that time as possessing an opium-induced-likebeauty (Takatori 2003, 173).
Lemmings contained sequences featuring several themes that were only topicallyinterconnected. At the beginning, a man laid dying on the stage, and several
scenes took place in a hospital. Later, a man tried to break out from a prison, but
a female warden appeared in a dominatrix outfit and treated him badly. In anotherstory thread, a film crew was tyrannized by a moody diva. Then a man who wasaroused by some sexy young ladies appeared, but at this moment his mother’s
head emerged from a trapdoor in order to rebuke him. The appearance of themother, again performed by a male actor, differed from former Terayama works,
as her power seemed already weakened. On the other hand, the mother appeared－ 321 －

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as if she was calling her son from the grave. In one of the last scenes, the mothercame out from the trapdoor and pushed her son in.
An important scenic motif in Lemmings was that one could look through walls.
Terayama wanted to show how people living in a mass society were insulated.
They all built walls around themselves in order to protect themselves. They
retreated into their own world of thoughts, which could only be gradually
distinguished from insanity (Senda 1997, 110). A protagonist who claimed thathe could walk through walls was promptly certified insane. One keyword of theplay was deguchi (exit). Being able to break through walls is similar to the desire
to break through the boundaries between outside and inside, between freedom andservitude, between reality and insanity, and not least of all, between life and death.
Terayama’s final film, Saraba Hakobune
Terayama’s last film, Saraba Hakobune (Goodbye Noah’s Ark), was produced in
1982. It was adapted from his 1981 play, Hyakunen no Kôdoku. The setting wasa fictitious village in which a murder occurred. The murdered person appeared
again to the murderer in later scenes, not to seek revenge, but rather to accompany
him like a friend. In the village, there was a hole in the ground which supposedly
connected the living with the dead. At one point, the postman climbed down inorder to deliver letters to dead people. All the figures appeared in the final scene
in modern Tokyo, the living as well as the dead.
The hole in Saraba Hakobune had a strong symbolism, like the trapdoor in
Lemmings. Terayama had previously used this black-hole motif in Shintokumaru,
where the protagonist climbed down into a hole in order to meet his dead mother－ 322 －

Terayama Shûji: Japanese avant-garde theater from the 1970s reviewed four decades later

but was able to return to the world of the living. At the time Lemmings was inproduction, Terayama knew that he himself would fall into this hole before long.
Since 1979, he had been suffering from liver disease, and his condition became
successively worse, with no hope for a cure. But even if he had to die, he wanted
to at least hold on to the hope of a return.
Terayama’s legacy
Most critics, even those who had regarded him as a poet only, acknowledged that
Terayama had become a brilliant theater practitioner in the end. He had set up awhole catalog of new theatrical possibilities with his experiments (Senda 1995,
154). Shortly before his death, his desire was to create a kabuki play, or at least
a production in the kabuki style. It was meant to be a show for a contemporary
audience that should not destroy the old kabuki spirit (Senda 1983, 30). After hehad torn down all of barriers as an uncompromising avant-garde artist in orderto achieve the utmost in artistic freedom, it was the disciplined form of classic
theater that appealed to him in the end.
Terayama died on May 4th, 1983 of liver cirrhosis after he had already suffered akidney ailment in his younger years. A few months later, Tenjô Sajiki dissolved(Senda 1995, 157). It was a diverse troop with a great fluctuation of members.
Terayama’s motto was, “Take everyone who comes, hold back no one who goes”(Senda 1983, 22). After he passed away, some of Terayama’s companions tried
to continue his legacy, the most successful of them being his co-author, Kishida
Rio, and her group Kishida Jimusho (Kishida Studio). She, however, died in
2003. Besides her, there was also the musician and composer J.A. Seaser, who
was also Terayama’s co-director during his later years. Seaser later established the
independent theater group Ban’yû Inryoku (General Gravity). One of Terayama’s－ 323 －

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actors, Takatori Ei, founded a girl-ensemble group called Gesshoku Kagekidan.
Other actors started solo careers, but overall only a few of the former Tenjô Sajiki
members are still active in film or theater today. Finally, another theater group
was formed, called the Ryûzanji Company. Despite not having any direct staff
connections with Tenjô Sajiki, this group founded by Ryûzanji Shô paid homage
to Terayama and can be seen as an example of his legacy moving forward (Senda
1995, 160).
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Courdy Këiko, "Antonin Artaud's Influence on Terayama Shûji", in: Japanese theatre and the international
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Goodman David G., Japanese Drama and Culture in the 1960s. The Return of the Gods. New York: East
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Goodman David G., Angura - Posters of the Japanese Avant-Garde. New York: Princeton Architectural
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Hübner Paul, "Japanische Perversionen - Homosexueller Untergrund im "Studio" der Essener Bühnen",in: Rheinische Post 11th Novembre 1969 p. 20
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Krieglstein Werner, "Terayamas widerspruchsvolle Theatermittel", in: Theater heute 1/1974 p. 29-31
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Senda Akihiko, Gekiteki Renaissance - Gendai engeki wa kataru. Tokyo: Riburopôto 1983
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Videography:
Terayama Shûji, Sho o Suteyo Machi e Deyô. Jinriki Hikôki Production. Art Theater Guild: Towa Video1971
Terayama Shûji, Den'en ni Shisu. Jinriki Hikôki Production. Art Theater Guild: Towa video 1974
Terayama Shûji / Seaser J.A., Shintokumaru - Sekkyôbushi no shudai ni yoru misemono-opera. Jinriki
Hikôki Sha:Tokyo, Kinokuniya Hall 22-26th June 1978
Terayama Shûji, Lemming. Spirit Enterprise, Jinriki Hikôki Sha: Yokohama Bunka Center 15th May 1983
Terayama Shûji, Kegawa no Marie. Spirit Enterprise, Jinriki Hikôki Sha: Parco Gekijô 18th June 1983
Terayama Shûji, Aomori-ken no Semushi Otoko. Spirit Enterprise, Jinriki Hikôki Sha: Parco Gekijô 1st
October 1983
Terayama Shûji, Saraba Hakobune. Jinriki Hikôki Production. Art Theater Guild: Towa Video 1984
Terayama Shûji, Engeki Jikkenshitsu Tenjô sajiki. Video Anthology. Tokyo: Jinriki Hikôki Sha 1993
Terayama Shûji / Kishida Rio / Ninagawa Yukio, Shintokumaru. Pony Canyon 21th February 1996

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