The Yalta Conference and Ronin Office Ladies; March 14, 2006
Channel: Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: 2013-11-12

The Yalta Conference and Ronin Office Ladies: Two Plays Performed by the Seinendan Japanese Theatre Troupe

Oriza Hirata, Playwright, director, leader of Seinendan, and artistic director of Komaba Agora Theater.

Seinendan Theatre Troupe Directed by Oriza Hirata, Tokyo, Japan

One of the most important Japanese "little theatre" troupes of the past twenty years, Seinendan, will perform two comedies by Oriza Hirata in Japanese with English supertitles.

In The Yalta Conference, three actresses recreate the February 1945 meeting at which Stalin, Churchill, and a terminally ill Franklin Roosevelt determined the shape of the postwar world. Insightful and hilarious, The Yalta Conference puts a unique Japanese spin on one of the cardinal events of the twentieth century.

Ronin Office Ladies spoofs Chushingura, the classic tale of the forty-seven masterless samurai who hatch an elaborate plot to avenge their master?s wrongful death. Seinendan?s irreverent parody takes place in a contemporary corporate lunchroom, where disgruntled "office ladies" plot to avenge the mistreatment of a colleague.

Hosted by: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

In conjunction with: College of Fine and Applied Arts, Department of Theatre, Foreign Languages Building Fund, Global Crossroads Living Learning Community, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Japan House, Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, Unit One, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program

Tuesday, March 14, 2006
7:30 pm
Auditorium, Lincoln Hall