An Essay on ‘The Blind Brother’, the adapted drama by Yūzō Yamamoto

Abstract

　This paper is concerned with the inspection of the reason why ‘The Blind Brother’ (Mōmōku-no-otōto 1929), the adapted drama from Arthur Schnitzler, was written and how it was composed of by Yūzō Yamamoto.

　Eight years before this adaptation was produced, he translated a fine short story of Schnitzler’s ‘Der blinde Geronimo und sein Bruder’. Though it was in his student days when he began to contact with this Austrian writer and dramatist, his real understanding of Schnitzler was formed after he passed his own literary cultivation from 1916 to 1919. There Yūzō came to regard Schnitzler’s works as the opus of humanity, which led him translate the warm-hearted story of the blind Geronimo and his brother Carlo.

　It was also then that he chanced to see Kikugorō Onoe, the actor of accomplishments, who could create the touch of humanity on the stage in those days. The collaboration of such elements as these gave Yūzō the motif to make ‘The blind Brother’. To express such humanistic atmosphere in the new drama, he set up the scenes of ‘tearing’ or ‘crying’ as a stage directions, not as the words. This way of his expression seemed to be the symbol of humanity that he is eager to depict in his literary life.

　Besides, the discussion of this adaptation should be closely considered from the humanistic mind of Yūzō that can be seen through Yūzō’s dramas and novels.