STYLE OF SEINENDAN
Oriza Hirata's "contemporary colloquial theater" theory has drawn much attention since the 1990's and has had a great influence on the Japanese theater.
Life is not a continuous string of significant events such as love affairs and murders. The main portion of life is filled with quiet and uneventful moments. Hirata often uses such quiet moments for his theatrical works. Our existence itself is already dramatic and amazing. By nature, life contains complicated and fertile aspects. Life can be entertaining, graceful, funny, and stupid at any moment. We abstract and then reconstruct on stage these complicated elements. Thus we try to present the quiet moments of life on stage directly.
What makes Seinendan quite different from other theater companies of our generation is that we have always kept our theory and practice open to society through workshops and through Hirata's books, including "Gendai Kogo Engeki no tameni (For Contemporary Colloquial Theater)," "Toshini Shukusaiwa Iranai (Cities Need No Festivities)," "Engeki Nyumon (Introduction to Drama)," and "Geijutsu Rikkoku-ron (Arts as the Basis of a Nation)."
The direction toward a completely new type of theater that Hirata and Seinendan have taken so far has been slow but steady, based on our practical and new theater theory. We continue our creative work in the confident belief that when "contemporary colloquial theater" is complete, it should mark the birth of a true contemporary theater that reflects the intricate mentality of contemporary society in Japan.
Besides presenting pieces written and directed by Oriza Hirata, in 2002 Seinendan started a new system, "Seinendan Links," for the actors and directors belonging to the company. For a Seinendan Links production, a director organizes his/her own cast and crew making use of the resources of Seinendan and the Komaba Agora theater where Hirata is the artistic director. We are aiming at becoming a "theater company" in its true sense, scarce in number in present Japan, a group consisting of various directors, playwrights and actors and capable of presenting versatile productions.
Hirata's theory, built to fit the characteristics of the Japanese language, is also gaining popularity and received enthusiastically overseas as a truly original theater theory. Hirata has been giving workshops in various places including France, Korea, Canada and Southeast Asian countries.
