Japanese playwright and director Prof. Hirata Oriza conducted a five-day workshop at TNUA's Department of Theatre Arts in April.
In preparation for the workshop, the Department of Theatre Arts had already arranged six screenings of a documentary on Prof. Hirata's art in March.
Born in 1962, Prof. Hirata is among the so-called third-generation playwrights and directors in Japan. Known for his contemporary colloquial theatre theory, the playwright-director is professor at the Osaka University Center of the Study of Communication-Design, and a board member of the Japan Performing Arts Foundation.
His contemporary colloquial theatre theory aims to bring the daily language back to the stage. He stresses that “talking” is only one of the many human activities, and accompanying talking there are many body movements.
Cheng Kai-Yun, a graduate student of the Department of Theatre, described the workshop as inspiring after taking part in it. For example, he said, an actor usually would start analyzing a play after receiving it and then do his or her best to memorize the lines.
But Prof. Hirata insists that an actor must avoid being carried away by “strong lines” and at the same time should let the reciting of the lines become one of the movements of a play, Cheng said.
Another participant, Lai Meng-Chun, said parts of the scripts provided by Prof. Hirata for their training were written like music scores, which likened each actor to a specific musical instrument who sometimes plays a solo part and sometimes engages in a conversation.
The theme is often obscured, but this way of writing can be completely liberating, Liao said.