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)

 References 

 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  

Category:1957 establishments in Asia
Category:1970 establishments in Asia