ABSTRACT
Now THAT JAPANESE productions of major Shakespearean plays, notably by the directors Ninagawa Yukio and Suzuki Tadashi, have been widely seen and well received in such major theatrical centers as London, New York, and Edinburgh, the general public in the West has at last become aware of at least the outlines of the fact that, indeed, there exists a viable tradition of Shakespeare production in Japan. And, given this sustained interest among Japanese audiences, it is perhaps not so surprising that, in fact, a certain number of heretofore underappreciated plays such as Pericles have found stagings, and something of a public, in Japan. The focus of my observations here is on the first representation of Pericles, in October 1976, directed by Anzai Hitoshi, well known in Japan both as a scholar of Shakespeare and as an active figure in the contemporary theater.
