Greek Tragedy Study Club, University of Tokyo

**Greek Tragedy Study Club, University of Tokyo (GTSC)** was a student theatre company that was founded at The University of Tokyo and active from 1957 to 1970. They studied and revived Greek tragedy on stage. While main members were students from the Faculty of Letters, experts from various fields and students from other universities also joined their productions. They performed eleven times in total in Tokyo, of which records are still preserved.

## Overview

The club, first founded to study Greek tragedy as drama and then to revive and perform it in its original style, was registered as an official student society of The University of Tokyo in 1958 and named Greek Tragedy Study Club, University of Tokyo (GTSC). Their first production was

_Oedipus Tyrannus_ by Sophocles, performed at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre on the 2nd of June, 1958.

In the following years, starting from _Antigone_ by Sophocles as their second production in May 1959, the club expanded their repertoire to

_Prometheus Bound_ (originally written by Aeschylus, performed in1960), _Agamemnon_ (id., 1961), _Philoctetes_ (Sophocles, 1962), _Troades_ (Euripides, 1963), _Heracles_ (id., 1964), _Persae_ (Aeschylus, 1965), _Bacchae_ (Euripides, 1966). All the nine performances at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre were supported by The Asahi Shimbun Company.

During those years, they started to use masks in the  ancient Greek style for their third production _Prometheus Bound_. In _Bacchae_ they even brought back the 'Three-Actor Rule', where three male masked actors play all the roles of drama.

After each production they held a review meeting to summarise their achievement in performance and study. These essays, together with the scripts for performance, were published as journals, _Greek Tragedy Studies_ (up until the 5th performance).

In later years, the company moved their venue to Den'en Colosseum. In their production there in 1968, _Suppliants_ by Aeschylus, they followed the Greek tradition to perform tragedy in the daytime.

Their last production came on stage in 1970. Aeschylus's _Seven against Thebes_, performed in an indoor venue (Chiyoda Town Hall), marked the end of 14 active years of the club.

In October 2017, the club gathered again to hold a conference, _To the Very Echo: Performances of Greek Tragedy by the <GTSC>_, in a series of events commemorating the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Seijo University.

In March 2019, they published _To the Very Echo: Performances of Greek Tragedy by the <GTSC>　_(eds. Mitsuya Mori & Atsuko Hosoi; publ. by Ronsosha, Tokyo. ISBN 978-4-.8460-1798-9). In addition to some records of the lectures given at their event in 2017, the volume also contains the data of each production since their foundation in April 1957.

## Production data

**1st performance - Sophocles, _Oedipus Tyrannus***
- 2 June 1958, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producers : Mikio Shibuya, Hisashi Abe, Minoru Morimura, Yusuke Hosoi
- Director : Sadao Nakajima
- Translation : Sadao Nakajima, Takeo Kamura

**2nd performance - Sophocles, _Antigone***
- 30 May 1959, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producer : Shun’ya Ito
- Director : Yusuke Hosoi
- Translation : GTSC

**3rd performance - Aeschylus, _Prometheus Bound***

- 4-5 June 1960, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producer : Mitsuya Mori
- Director : Takeo Takahashi
- Translation : GTSC

**4th performance - Aeschylus, _Agamemnon***

- 3-4 June 1961, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- 5 June 1962, at Kyoritsu Hall
- Producers : Masahiro Yoshizawa, Yutaka Kohira
- Director : Takeo Takahashi
- Translation : GTSC

**5th performance - Sophocles, _Philoctetes***

- 26, 28 May 1962, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producers : Yoshiki Honda, Hideki Oishi, Akihiko Aida, Yusuke Hosoi
- Director : Masaaki Kubo
- Translation : GTSC

**6th performance - Euripides, _Troades***

- 1-2 June 1963, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producers : Hideki Oishi, Taketoshi Honma
- Director : Yusuke Hosoi
- Translation : GTSC

**7th performance - Euripides, _Heracles***

- 30-31 May 1964, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producers : Taketoshi Honma, Akira Numata
- Director : Tetsuo Tamura
- Translation : GTSC

**8th performance - Aeschylus, _Persae***

- 5-6 June 1965, at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producer : Hiromichi Tokunaga
- Director : Tetsuo Tamura
- Translation : GTSC

**9th performance - Euripides, _Bacchae***

- 5-6 June 1966 (matinees and soirees), at Hibiya Outdoor Amphitheatre, Tokyo
- Producers : Shuichi Chubashi, Yusuke Kamiyama
- Director : Mitsuya Mori
- Translation : GTSC

**10th performance - Aeschylus, _Suppliants***
- 1-3 November 1968, at Den'en Colosseum, Tokyo
- Producers: Akira Mori, Fumiko Ishikawa
- Director: Yusuke Kamiyama
- Translation: GTSC (Kensuke Tejima)

**11th performance - Aeschylus, _Seven against Thebes**_

- 23-24 October 1970, at Chiyoda Townhall, Tokyo
- Producer: Fumihiko Igarashi
- Director: Nobuyuki Onuma
- Translation: GTSC (Kensuke Tejima)

## Related pages

- Theatre of ancient Greece
- Tragedy (Greek theatre)

## Other websites

- Greek Tragedy Study Club, University of Tokyo: Official Home page
- Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama <APGRD>, Oxford
- Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama <APGRD>, Oxford. _To the Very Echo : performances of Greek tragedy by the GTSC _