2019 Volume 68 Pages 15-20
Kaoru Osanai, a pioneer of shingeki (new drama), was invited as a state guest to Moscow between November and December 1927 to participate in the celebrations to mark the Tenth Anniversary of the Russian Revolution. At his departure he announced that he would study the works of Vsevolod Meyerhold in particular. Osanai witnessed the Russian post-Revolutionary theatre in Moscow and came home. Previous opinions state that about the works of Meyerhold he made only a few notes in his “Extracted Russian Diary” and never said anything more on the subject.
However, soon after returning to Japan on February 18, 1928, he conducted a lecture titled “Literature Lecture: New Russian Theatre and our Kabuki Theatre” on the radio program of JOAK (the antecedent of NHK). Announcements appeared in several newspapers at that time. Because there are no previous studies that have ever mentioned this radio lecture, and moreover, it is said that Osanai must have witnessed no influence of kabuki theatre on the plays of Meyerhold while staying in Moscow, I introduce the new material. The Yomiuri Newspaper article reprinted in this paper is the most detailed of several announcements in newspapers at that time.
