Lincoln Center Festival lead support is provided by American Express July 23 –26 David H. Koch Theater Ninagawa Company Kafka on the Shore Based on the book by Haruki Murakami Adapted for the stage by Frank Galati Directed by Yukio Ninagawa Translated by Shunsuke Hiratsuka Set Designer Tsukasa Nakagoshi Costume Designer Ayako Maeda Lighting Designer Motoi Hattori Sound Designer Katsuji Takahashi Hair and Make-up Designers Yoko Kawamura , Yuko Chiba Original Music Umitaro Abe Chief Assistant Director Sonsho Inoue Assistant Director Naoko Okouchi Stage Manager Shinichi Akashi Technical Manager Kiyotaka Kobayashi Production Manager Yuichiro Kanai Approximate performance time: 3 hours, including one intermission Major support for Lincoln Center Festival 2015 is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center Festival 2015 is made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Lincoln Center Festival 2015 presentation of Kafka on the Shore is made possible in part by generous support from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust. Additional support provided by Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc., Marubeni America Corporation, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas), Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, ITOCHU International Inc., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Inc., and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal U.S.A., Inc. Co-produced by Saitama Arts Foundation, Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc., and HoriPro, Inc. LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 KAFKA ON THE SHORE Greeting from HoriPro Inc. HoriPro Inc., along with our partners Saitama Arts Foundation and Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc., is delighted that we have once again been invited to the Lincoln Center Festival , this time to celebrate the 80th birthday of director, Yukio Ninagawa, who we consider to be one of the most prolific directors in Japanese theater history. For this special occasion, Mr. Ninagawa has chosen to direct Kafka on the Shore , written by one of the most acclaimed authors in Japan today, Haruki Murakami. After the production’s successful run in London this past May, Kafka on the Shore travels to Singapore and Seoul following its performances in New York. Even though Mr. Ninagawa has been unwell over the past year, he has continued to work diligently, rehearsing Kafka on the Shore and creating a new version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet —yet another celebratory piece for his 80th birthday. It is a true demonstration, if indeed we need one, of his continued vitality and how committed he continues to be to his art. Although Mr. Ninagawa is well on the way to recovery, his doctors will not yet permit him to travel abroad. While this is heartbreaking for him, as he has always traveled to New York with his company, this production was prepared in Japan with all our strength and heart under Mr. Ninagawa’s steady leadership, and we are honored that he has entrusted us to deliver it to you on his behalf. Takeo Hori Founder and Executive Producer, HoriPro Inc. LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 KAFKA ON THE SHORE Cast Miss Saeki/Girl Rie Miyazawa Oshima Naohito Fujiki Kafka Nino Furuhata Sakura Anne Suzuki Crow Hayato Kakizawa Hoshino Tsutomu Takahashi Colonel Sanders Masakatsu Toriyama Nakata Katsumi Kiba Johnnie Walker Masato Shinkawa Dr. Juichi Nakazawa/NHK News Anchor Masafumi Senoo Kawamura Mame Yamada Otsuka/Brawny Soldier Yukio Tsukamoto Police Officer Fumiaki Hori Ms. Soga Yoko Haneda Ms. Tanaka/NHK Television Announcer Soko Takigawa Mimi/The Colonel’s Girl Katrine Mutsukiko Doi Vincent Setsuko Okamochi Erika Shumoto Dog/Tall Soldier Takamori Teuchi Major James P. Warren Shinya Matsuda LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 KAFKA ON THE SHORE don’t know when it will come to an end. I Note From the Director can make a solemn promise that I will try to do my job to the best of my abilities It is a great honor that one of my produc - before that time comes. That has been my tions is again being performed in New York ambition throughout my career as a director, at Lincoln Center Festival —this time as a and I still hope with every new production part of my 80th anniversary tour. to bring something new to the stage. Ever since I saw the dioramas at the I am only sorry that I am currently not well American Museum of Natural History in enough to fly to New York for this special New York in my youth, I have longed to event, but my soul is apart from my body apply the idea of using a diorama in my to be with you and the company for every work, and when I read Kafka on the Shore performance. I sincerely pray my work will I realized that Haruki Murakami’s writing be esteemed in your eyes. style would be the perfect fit. Mr. Murakami’s work has both intimate details —Yukio Ninagawa as well as a dynamic scale of narrative. The details can be presented through what is inside the dioramas, while the dynamic Haruki Murakami and narrative is brought about through the Kafka on the Shore movements of the diorama boxes on the stage. Talking cats, transgender librarians, truck drivers, and Colonel Sanders may not Another important element of his work is seem the most obvious ingredients for an Greek tragedy, which brings back the international bestseller but Kafka on the memory of once visiting the Temple of Shore is no ordinary story and Haruki Apollo in Delphi, Greece. Mr. Murakami’s Murakami is no ordinary author. work is full of Greek tragedy, most impor - tantly, the classic story of patricide which Born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949, the son of a figures strongly in this story. pair of teachers, Mr. Murakami grew up immersing himself in American culture; Aging for me is not easy. If you are merely reading hard-boiled crime novels, listening in stasis, but remaining who you are, then to rock and roll and, eventually, becoming a inevitably as a man who is 80, you will jazz enthusiast. receive respect and consideration in every - day life, but nothing more. However, if you He met his wife, Yoko, at university and continue to do battle with yourself, and ask they set up a jazz bar together, the Peter questions of yourself, then perhaps you Cat. It was a popular and successful achieve something else. I constantly ask venue, but something happened to Mr. myself, “Who’s there?” In doing this I am Murakami in 1978 that changed the course asking what will be left after the layers of of his life. While sitting in the stands during life are peeled off like the skin of an onion. a baseball match watching his favorite Hopefully it is more than nothing. team the Yakult Swallows versus the Hiroshima Carp, he was suddenly struck Being unwell recently made me consider with the idea of writing a novel. “It was the rest of my life, although, of course, I like a revelation, something out of the LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 KAFKA ON THE SHORE blue,” he said later. On the way home he tives. In the first, a teenage boy has run bought pens and paper and started writing away from his father’s home to try to find what was to become Hear the Wind Sing . his estranged mother and sister. We do It was published in 1979 and won the not learn his real name but he calls himself Gunzo newcomers award. The jazz bar Kafka, after his favorite writer. During his owner had become a novelist. journey he frequently interacts with his alter ego, or imaginary friend, Crow. He The books that followed became popular ends up in a remote private library in with Japanese youth during the early Takamatsu, run by the mysterious Miss 1980s. His use of twenty-something Saeki, and is permitted to stay. There he narrators and colloquial language made his befriends Oshima, a transgender librarian. writing instantly accessible to a generation The two of them meet and discuss life and that often felt shut out of the mannered, literature every day. It is, for Kafka, an idyllic restrained world of literary fiction. But he existence until the police arrive, looking to found an even wider audience when he question him about a violent crime. published Norwegian Wood in 1987, a more traditional love story or, at least, as The second narrative concerns Nakata, an traditional as Mr. Murakami is likely to get. elderly man considered slow and simple. It became a phenomenon in Japan. Fans As a child he was involved in a curious started dressing to match the book’s jack - incident while on a school trip. His entire ets (it came in two volumes: one red, the class was rendered unconscious following other green), a muzak cover version of the a bright flash of light in the sky. Nakata Beatles song went to number one on the took longer to recover than his classmates charts, and there was even a Norwegian and when he did regain consciousness he Wood air freshener on supermarket shelves. had lost his memory but gained the ability to communicate with cats. Now, in his old Uncomfortable with this level of fame, Mr. age, he makes a small living by using his Murakami left Japan to travel the world, unusual talent to find lost cats in the neigh - eventually settling in America where he borhood. What better way to find a cat wrote the book most critics believe to be his than by asking other cats? One such masterpiece, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle .