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1990.Road to Tokyo.Pdf JOURNEYS ... \rhe Road to ~okyo! THE SOVIET ACROBATIC REVUE MONDAY. JANUARY 7, 1991 7:30P.M. Blaisdell Concert Hall Dazzling gymnastic skills! Vaudevillian stage presence! Circus hijinks! All seats reserved: $20. $15. $10 Tickets on sale beginning December 17, November30 1990 at the Blaisdell Center box office. For information 521-2911. December 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, furl of a statewide tour arranged by the University of & Hawaii, CCECS under a grantfrom the State Foundation 13, 14, 15, 16 on Culture and the Arts. Presented in association with the HawaU Society for American-Soviet Friendship. 1990 The University of Hawaii at Manoa Department of Theatre and Dance in cooperation with the Music Department presents The Road to Tokyo! A New Kabuki Comedy Inspired by Jippensha Ikku's Shank's Mare (Tokai Dochu Hizakurige) A Sequel to The Road to Kyoto! by James R. Brandon and Kathy Foley Script by James R. Brandon and Brian Shaughnessy Directed by James R. Brandon Assisted by Lawrence D. Lessard Choreography by Onoe Kikunobu AMERICAN COLLEGE THEATER FESTIVAL XXIII PRESENTED AND PRODUCED BY THE Assisted by Onoe Kikunobukazu JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE and Onoe Kikunobuaki PERFORMING ARTS Musical Direction by Chie Yamada Supported in Part by Assisted by Ricardo D. Trimillos The Kennedy Center Corporate Fund Vocal Coaching by David Furumoto The U.S. Department of Education Scenic Design by Joseph D. Dodd Ryder System Costumes Coordinated by Sandra Finney This production is a Participating entry in the Lighting Design and Technical Direction American College Theater Festival (ACTF). The aims by Mark Boyd of this national educational theater program are to identify and promote quality in college-level theater TIME: Spring 1868, the first year of the modem Meiji era production. To this end, each production entered is PLACE: Various "stations" of the Nakasendo, or the Central eligible for adjudication by a regional American College Mountain Road connecting Kyoto and Edo (Tokyo) Theater Festival representative. The production is also ACT I: Between Kyoto and The Pine Tree Inn at eligible for inclusion at the ACTF regional festival. Agematsu Eight ACTF regional festivals are produced nationwide each year, and from these festivals up to six INTERMISSION productions are selected to be part of the Act II: Between Lake Suwa and Nirasaki noncompetitive ACTF national festival at the John F. ACT III: Between Fuji View Inn and Edo (Tokyo) Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts each spring. ACTF also sponsors regional and national level awards, scholarships, and special grants to student actors, playwrights, designers, and critics. Primary funding for the Kabuki Acting Training program during the spring and fall semesters 1990 Last year approximately 800 productions and and for special production expenses was provided by 17,000 students participated in the American College a grant from Theater Festival nationwide. By entering this University of Hawaii Japan Studies Endowment­ production in ACTF, our department is endorsing the Funded by a grant ACTF goals to help college theater grow and to focus from the Japanese government attention on the exemplary work produced in university and college theaters across the nation. ' 2 3 Welcome The Cast of Characters onight's production of The Road to Tokyo! (in order of appearance) T continues a proud tradition of Asian theatre at the University of Hawaii that began in the early 1920s. It Theatre Barker I ...................................... ROY MURAl has been a remarkable journey, one that has culminated Theatre Barker 2 .................................. BRYAN WAKE in an Asian Theatre program known throughout the Tea Seller .. ........................................ VALERIE HIGA nation and the world as the finest and the most unique of Yajirobei, merchant, traveling home its kind. to Edo ........................................... STUART SMITH It is difficult to believe that a program such as ours Kitahachi, young merchant friend of Yaji 's, traveling could have developed anywhere other than in Hawaii 's home to Edo ............................ .. .. KEVIN WESLEY special atmosphere of ethnic diversity, cooperation and commitment to learning and sharing of one another's Street Dancer, performing for culture. passersby at Otsu ........ ...... Y ASUKO MATSUOKA Every year for an entire decade in the 1930s, this Noodle Shop Maid, at Otsu .......... MICHELLE KONO university produced a bill of Hawaiian, Japanese, Priest of Kuon Temple, near Tajimi ............ CHRIS NG Chinese, and "Caucasian" plays that represented the Pilgrims, visiting Kuon Temple ............. JONI KOEHN major ethnic communities of the islands. Performed by LISA ANN M. OMOTO students from each group, the plays provided KATHY WELCH opportunities to view, if not fully participate in, the Old Woman, travelling to Nakatsu Town, artistic expression of a multi-cultural society. but lost .............................................. GEY PIN ANG Today, student actors and dancers of every ethnic Ferryman, at the Kiso River background together perform Shakespeare, Mamet, crossing .. ........................ SHAWN K. FORSYTHE Hula, Javanese, wayang wong, Beijing Opera, Kabuki and Noh. They deepen their understanding and Maid, of food stall in Higuchi .......... KATHY WELCH appreciation of the diverse cultural traditions of our state Shirokiya Tojuro, actor-manager of the Shirokiya Tojuro by directly participating in the rich artistic heritage of its Grand Kabuki Troupe ................. NATHAN K. LEE peoples. Daiei Kichizaemon, actor of female roles in Shirokiya Our Asian productions are as varied as our student Tojuro Grand Kabuki Troupe .............. MATT DALY body. We have produced original plays about Hawaii, Pilgrim, actually a con-woman Philippine political and contemporary Indonesian drama, in disguise ........................ LISA ANN M. OMOTO lndianjatra, traditional Beijing Opera, modern Japanese Kiku, a chivalrous rogue and thief ..... JULIE A. IEZZI drama, Noh, Kyogen and Kabuki. The productions and Shizuka, daughter of the Mori family of the Takeda the Asian guest artists and directors who grace our stage samurai clan ................................ SHERRYL RAY complement the most extensive Asian theatre Madame, of the Pine Tree Inn in curriculum in any university. Clearly, we are proud of what we have been able Agematsu .......................................... JONI KOEHN and encouraged to accomplish in our Asian Theatre Ohito, a country prostitute ...... HOLLY A. BLUMNER program. It has taken vision, commitment, patience, Ofuta, a country prostitute ........... MICHELLE KONO talent, and vast sums of human and financial resources. Omitsu, a country prostitute .... .. MARY D. PARHAM It has also depended on the support of you, our Tokuhon, a melancholy young merchant intent audience. We thank you for that support and for on suicide ................................... JIAN HONG KUO traveling with us on our Road to Tokyo! Have a pleasant Oharu, his companion in love journey. and death ........................... Y ASUKO MATSUOKA Saruichi, a blind monk ........................... JONI KOEHN Roger A. Long, Chair Inuichi, his blind companion ....................... CHRIS NG Department of Theatre and Dance Maid, at a wayside roadhouse near College of Arts and Humanities the Tatsuka River ............... HOLLY A. BLUMNER Omura Banzaemon, samurai of the Takeda Clan .. ........ SHAWN K. FORSYTHE Groom, seller of rides at Fuji View, near Edo ........................................... GEY PIN ANG 4 5 Dancing Horse, a real thoroughbred ............................... NATHAN K. LEE Director's Notes BRYAN WAKE n 1802, the author Jippensha Ikku penned the first Maid, with telescope at Fuji View installment of a comic travel guide, By Foot Along Inn .......................................... MARY D. PARHAM I the Great Sea Road (Tokai Dochu Hizakurige). It American Museum Director, a blue-eyed became a bestseller and, for thirty years Ikku, not one to foreigner ..................... LAWRENCE D. LESSARD let a good thing slip away from him, turned out a Tokyo Dancers ...................... LISA ANN M. OMOTO succession of guides to all the great roads of the MARY D. PARHAM country. In each he placed his rapscallion heros, KATHY WELCH Yajirobei and Kitahachi, in one contretemps after Koken, stage assistants .................... KIRSTIN PAUKA another. SONY A SHIGEMURA In our play Yajirobei and Kitahachi bumble home CYNTHIA SHIMABUKU to Edo along the 300-mile-long Central Mountain DAVIN WEINSTEIN Road-the Nakasendo--after a long vacation in Kyoto. SUEHANUENG Yaji and Kita are merchants in a feudal society ruled by the samurai class. The year is 1868, and as they walk BRYAN WAKE the backroads of Japan we are able to meet through their MILO YOUNG eyes a vibrant, idiosyncratic melange of people who are Audience Members ..................... CHRISTIE CURRY, far removed from the official Japan of tea ceremonies ALAN HIRONAKA, and JOHN VILLESVIK and samurai lords. They fall prey to a con-man Also: JIM BECERA, TIM GREER, YUKO ferryman, a trickster pilgrim, and a huckstering serving HIROSHIGE, EVELYN HO,YUKO KATO, maid. They nearly drown in the Kiso River and are HERBERT LEE, PATRICK LOUIE, NEIL drafted as actors in a fourth-rate Kabuki troupe. The MILNER, KAY MOORE, MARY MOSCO VIC, play ends as the modern Meiji Era begins. When Yaji SUSAN PARK, BRUCE SKINNER, JULIUS and Kita arrive home they find Edo is now called SOMF AI, CORAL SPRUKTS, and KIRSTEN Tokyo, and
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